The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (21 page)

Just how eager Marianna was to make the trip to Rome is not clear. It would take her the farthest she had ever been from home and to a city that stood for everything she feared. It was for the men to deal with the powers of Church and state, not for women such as she. And although her physical health was not as fragile as so many of the family’s supporters and the Church’s detractors claimed, she was without doubt emotionally battered by her ordeal. The idea of leaving the solicitude of her relatives and friends, not to mention her children, was frightening. Yet the desire to see Edgardo again, fifteen weeks after kissing him good-bye in Bologna, was powerful as well.

If there was any doubt as to whether Marianna should make the trip, it was dispelled by the advice they received from Rome’s Università Israelitica. Scazzocchio and his colleagues thought the time ripe for her appearance on the scene. Not only would the sight of the bereft mother put additional pressure on the Church to relent, but by embracing Edgardo she could, they hoped, help dispel their biggest nightmare: the signs Edgardo was showing of wanting to remain in the Catechumens and to become a Christian.

On October 10, Momolo informed Rome of their imminent departure: “I hasten … to advise you that, God willing, tomorrow evening, Monday, I will
leave by stagecoach, together with the person whose coming was called for by those honorable men before my departure [from Rome].” They expected to arrive in Rome by Wednesday evening, the season being favorable for travel, and they asked that arrangements be made to have a room ready for them.
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When Enrico Sarra, rector of the House of the Catechumens, learned that Edgardo’s mother was on her way to Rome to see her child, he panicked. The boy had held up well, he thought, against his father’s entreaties, but the embrace of his weeping mother might be more than even Edgardo could resist.

Facing the unsettling prospect of Marianna Mortara’s visit, the Rector turned to his family for help. When, the day after their arrival in Rome, having barely dusted themselves off from their long trip, Momolo and Marianna appeared at the Catechumens door, they were told that their child was no longer there. When Momolo then demanded to speak with the Rector, he was informed that he, too, had left.

Momolo soon discovered what had happened. Sarra had taken the boy into hiding in his hometown, Alatri, a small city of twenty thousand, fifty miles away in the hinterland of Lazio. The Mortaras hired a coach, and before setting out in pursuit, they got the name of a Jewish man in Alatri who would help them on their arrival.

Once in Alatri, thanks to their local contact, Momolo learned where the Sarra family lived and hurried there with his wife. Neither the Rector nor Edgardo was to be found there, but Momolo discovered that Sarra had been seen with a small boy earlier in the day going to a church nearby. Leaving Marianna at the Rector’s home, he hastened to the church. He would not enter it, a disinclination made all the stronger by the fact that he could see that a mass was in progress. But, standing at the front door, he saw little Edgardo at the other end, assisting the priest who was saying the mass. Momolo decided to wait for the ceremonies to end for his encounter with his son and the Rector. He later told what happened:

“When I saw people begin to leave, I went over to the door near the Sacristy so that I could speak with the Rector and beg him to send Edgardo home so that my wife and I could see him. But hardly had I arrived at the door when a priest, whom I recognized as the Rector’s brother, slammed the door in my face, so I returned to the street to wait for them to come out.” Momolo kept up his anxious vigil for another half hour, when at last the Rector and his brother appeared at the church door, with Edgardo walking between them, each priest holding a hand. “Instead of turning toward where I was standing, that is, in the direction of their house, they turned the opposite way, picking up their pace. As I headed toward them, I saw the boy turn around so that he could see me, when all of a sudden I was stopped by another man, who said he was another brother of the Rector. He told me, on behalf of the Rector
himself, to return to his home, where the Rector would meet me in a little while with my son.”

Rather than follow Edgardo, who was being hustled off in the distance by the two priests, Momolo turned back and returned to the Rector’s home, where he told Marianna what had happened and nervously awaited Edgardo’s arrival. They waited and waited, but no one came. When they could stand it no more, they went outside to see what they could find out. As they began to walk down the street, Momolo realized that two policemen were following them. On their arrival at their hotel, where they had left their carriage, the policemen followed them in.

The marshal in charge asked to see the Mortaras’ passports—Jews had to have special passports to travel within the Papal States—and, after confirming their identity, ordered the couple to follow him to see the Mayor. Momolo recalled the scene, which grew increasingly threatening, for word had been spread among the people of Alatri that the Jewish parents had come to murder their now Catholic son:

We obeyed, and in crossing the piazza, we saw that a large number of people had gathered, looking at us angrily. We presented ourselves to the mayor, and he asked us what we were doing. We replied that we only wanted to embrace our son, but at that, he responded that it was impossible, because I had only been given permission to see him one time in Rome. I told him that the permission I had gotten was unlimited and, as proof, told him I had already seen my son many times, but I got nowhere with him. He gave me just one hour to leave town, and handed me back my passport with a visa for Rome.
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The Mayor had acted not on his own initiative but at the request of the Bishop of Alatri. On October 16, the day of the Mortaras’ ill-fated trip to his diocese, the Bishop sent a report to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli:

This morning at eight o’clock, the Jews Salomone Mortara and his wife Maria Anna, of Bologna, parents of the little Edgardo, now a Christian—about whom Your Most Reverend Eminence is already fully informed—arrived in this city. With the help of another Jew, whose name I do not know, they tried to get to speak with their son. Don Enrico Sarra, Rector of the House of the Neophytes, who has the boy in his custody, was surprised by the unexpected appearance of the above-mentioned couple in this city. Having learned, while he was in church with the boy, that the Jews had already entered his home, he thought it expedient to take refuge with Edgardo in this Episcope, and has implored us to take emergency measures.

The Bishop was alarmed by these developments, conscious as he was of the delicacy of the matter. His decision, he told the Secretary of State, was influenced by a stirring sight, the pleadings of a distressed child: “While considering this request I became aware that the boy had become extremely agitated, for he had learned that his mother was here, and he repeatedly begged me not to expose him, as he put it, ‘to the torment.’ ”

Given this heart-rending plea, and his awareness of the importance of the case and the controversy swirling around it, the Bishop made his decision. He seized on the fact that the Mortaras had come to Alatri without any written authorization to speak with their son, and had them expelled from the city.
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Even before the Bishop’s letter arrived, Antonelli knew about the Mortaras’ abortive trip to the town, for no sooner had Momolo returned to Rome than he rushed to see the Cardinal. Conscious of how closely the ambassadors to the Holy See were following the Mortara saga, the Secretary of State wanted at all costs to appear judicious and decorous in handling the matter. Having the Catechumens rector fleeing from Rome with the child in tow, with bishops then finding hiding places for the pair, was hardly the image he was seeking.

On October 18, just after receiving the Bishop’s letter, and having already seen Momolo, Cardinal Antonelli wrote back with faint praise: “While I thank you for your kindly involvement in the case, I must add that in my opinion it would be more opportune for the Rector, Don Enrico Sarra, to return to Rome with little Edgardo.”
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On receiving the letter, the Bishop found himself in an awkward position, because the Rector and his little ward had already moved out. He informed Cardinal Antonelli in his reply that the pair had started back to Rome but that Don Sarra had had second thoughts, fearing that someone might be lying in wait for them along the road, and so the Rector had decided to take the child to the archdiocesan office in Frosinone, to consult with Cardinal Cagiano. The Alatri bishop concluded by assuring Antonelli that he would get word to the Rector to bring Edgardo right back to Rome.
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Unbeknownst to the Bishop, Cardinal Cagiano had himself lost no time in seeking advice from the Secretary of State, writing to him on the very day Edgardo arrived on his doorstep. Don Sarra had told Cardinal Cagiano of his concern that a plan was afoot to steal Edgardo from them. “In telling me what had happened in Alatri, he expressed his fear of running into some surprise in taking the boy back to Rome, and he was extremely agitated.” Agreeing that this fear was well founded, Cardinal Cagiano came up with a plan of his own: “The thought came to me of taking the child with me next week when I return to Frascati to participate in the reopening of the seminary, and placing him in that Holy Place, should Your Eminence find no problem with this solution, and should it please the providence of the Holy Father.”
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Cardinal Cagiano’s letter alarmed Antonelli. The continued flight of the Rector and the boy and the secreting of Edgardo in an obscure seminary would send all the wrong signals, signs of weakness and insecurity, and undignified to boot. The Secretary of State could see all too clearly what fun the anticlerical press—not to mention the newspaper artists who specialized in satirical drawings—would have with the story.

He replied immediately. Informing the Cardinal that the Bishop of Alatri had already sent him a report on the matter, Antonelli wrote that he wanted to remove “any further fear or apprehension from the soul of the one in whose care the young neophyte had been given.” He had already sent an order to the Bishop of Alatri to have the boy returned immediately to Rome, “where his spiritual welfare can better be provided for and where any possible inconvenience can be avoided. It is difficult here,” Antonelli added petulantly, “to understand the reasons that could have led to concern about some sort of surprise during the voyage.” As for Cardinal Cagiano’s plan, Antonelli wrote his fellow cardinal, “Your Eminence will therefore see how, given the present state of things, the idea of placing the neophyte in the seminary of Frascati may be less opportune, notwithstanding the charitable zeal by which your proposal is clearly driven.”
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The Secretary of State had spoken, and Don Sarra and Edgardo were soon on their way back to Rome. Although the Rector looked nervously out his carriage window, no one disturbed them on their way home.

On October 20, while the Rector and Edgardo were still in hiding in Frosi-none, Scazzocchio and his colleagues from the Università Israelitica sent a letter to all the Jewish communities in the Papal States, telling of Momolo and Marianna’s arrival in Rome and their recent experiences in Alatri. Cardinal Antonelli is portrayed in glowing terms. Once he had been told by Momolo of the misadventures in Alatri, “the Most Eminent Secretary of State, clearly upset, promised that he would that very day send the requisite orders to have the boy returned to Rome.” The Jewish officials also took the opportunity to reassure their brethren that Edgardo’s mother was a real fighter, and had not been incapacitated by the loss of her son: “Signora Mortara has the timidity that women have, reinforced by the heartache that you can see in her face, but where the matter of her lost son is concerned, she becomes energetic and most courageous, and so pleads her case quite well.” The news bulletin reported that the Pope had not yet pronounced his final decision in the case. Edgardo’s parents still had hope.
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CHAPTER 12
Meeting Mother

F
OUR MONTHS
after tearfully bidding Edgardo good-bye at their home in Bologna, Marianna finally got to hold her child in her arms again. On Friday, October 22, she and Momolo were ushered into a room in Rome’s Catechumens where their son nervously awaited them. Later the same day, Marianna wrote an account of the meeting in a letter to a friend in Bologna. The letter was distributed to sympathetic correspondents and published far and wide, although not in the Papal States, where such inflammatory material was banned.

“This morning,” Marianna recalled,

my husband and I made our way to the Catechumens, where we found that the Rector was just then arriving, returning with my dear son from Alatri. We went in and soon we had our beloved Edgardo in our arms. Sobbing and weeping, I kissed him and kept kissing him, and with great affection he returned our kisses and our hugs. He blushed deep red with emotion and cried, struggling between the fear he had for the man who controls him and his unchanged affection for his parents. The latter won out, and he repeatedly said, in a loud voice, that he wanted to go home with his parents and his brothers and his sisters. I told him that he was born a Jew like us and like us he must always remain one, and he replied: “
Si, mia cara mamma,
I will never forget to say the Shema
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every day.” When I told him that we had come to Rome to get him back, and that we’d not leave without him, the greatest joy and happiness came over him! The Rector and his brother and his sister were present for all of this, but they didn’t know what to say.
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