The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

大卫·I.科泽People's Literature Publishing House2018

Chapters

32

Series

On the evening of June 23, 1858, a knock came at the door of Momolo Mortara, a Jewish merchant in Bologna, in the Papal States. Policemen (carabinieri) of the Papal States had been sent to take away the Mortaras' six-year-old son, Edgardo. The reason: a Catholic maid in the household had secretly baptized the sickly boy, and the Holy See therefore held that he was now a Christian, could no longer remain in a Jewish home, and must be raised in a Catholic environment. The parents sought help everywhere, but their efforts to rescue him came to nothing, and the child was sent to a "House of Catechumens" in Rome. What seemed a local family tragedy quickly spilled beyond the walls of the Bologna ghetto: Jewish communities across Italy and in France, Britain, and the United States voiced their support, diplomatic channels in several European countries were drawn in, and public opinion was in an uproar both inside and outside the Catholic world. The debate over "the ownership of souls" and "the rights of parents" became intertwined with the political struggle between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and with the rising tide of the Italian national revival (the Risorgimento). The clerical stance upheld by Pope Pius IX left the Papal States increasingly isolated amid the wave of national unification. David I. Kertzer, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a professor at Brown University, combines an anthropologist's fine-grained touch with grand historical narrative. Drawing on Vatican archives, newspapers, memoirs, and other historical sources, he traces the ins and outs of the affair and the psychology of the figures involved, laying bare the hidden yet real chain of cause and effect linking religious conflict, identity, and the birth of a nation.

ISBN

9787020134250