portrayal of small boy as front to fight bigger wars

Pages: 298
Based on a true story the “Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” is a harrowing tale of how a Jewish boy Edgardo was snat-ched from his family by the authorities after he was rumoured to have been se-cretly baptised a Catholic by the family maid in an alleged near-death experience during his early stages of his infancy.
Set in post 1858 era in “On the Italian peninsula, the old world of the Papal power and the traditional authority of the uneasily faced the disparate progeny of the enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the champions of modern industry, science and commerce.” Page 6.
In this era there was such a huge chasm between the old world and the new in the lands of the Pope king who reigned simply because it was what “God willed”.
During such times all notions of free rule and democracy were simply nonsense and heretical.
Numbering just a mere 15 000 in the Papal state the Jews sadly held an unenviable position in Catholic theology of being the “killers of Christ”, who only stayed at the Pope’s mercy.
Having understood the era during which the events took place it is only then that one can undertake a reasoned study of the book.
Taken from his parents on Thursday, June 23, 1858 as per church doctrine that a baptised Jew could not be returned to his Jewish family the story is a touching portrayal how a small boy was used as a front to fight bigger wars.
“Once a Jewish child had been baptised the child was in the eyes of the church no longer a Jew and could not remain with his or her parents. In Catholic theology, baptism is viewed as a practice instituted by Jesus himself, its effects arte instantaneous and irreversible,” says the author on page 33.
In their doomed quest to win back their son the Mortaras stop at nothing even scandalising the supposed baptiser Anna Morisi.
Morisi is labelled a woman of loose morals and the events of the supposed baptism are put under the microscope to see if they meet the churches requirements.
As one goes through the book it is quite evident that the seizure of their child broke the very core of the Mortara family and resounded all through out the Jewish world at the time.
The father Momolo even penned numerous pleas to the Pope Pius IX himself.
“He hoped in issuing the judgment we have long yearned for, giving peace to the heartbroken family . . .”, says Momolo.
With the turning tide of enlightenment and dissent in the Papal States some of the Papal States including the Mortara’s home town of Bologna are freed from the popes rule.
The subsequent independence of Bologna sets of a tirade of arrests including the inquisitor and all involved in the snatching of the boy.
However, the story reaches an anti climax when having reached the age of consent Edgardo having “embraced” his new found religion refuses to return to his family who had tirelessly fought for return all through the years.
Instead Edgardo chooses to become a priest a decision that probably hurt his family more than his initial snat- ching.
To add insult to injury in his twilight years Momolo Mortara is accused of having been involved in a plot to kill his maid after he was alleged to have thrown her off their balcony.
Although later acquitted and later released after nearly a year of incarceration Momolo dies soon after, a broken man.
Some argue that his persecution for the supposed murder of his maid which turned out to be a suicide was because his was a Jew and his earlier involvement in his attempts to get his son back, actions which arguably angered those in authority.
Although the story over the centuries has been told from various angles namely those sympathising with the Jews and the others from the catholic hardliners it is certain that the tale of the Jewish boy is one that influenced the outcome of greater decisions to come.
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