How the Church Kidnapped a Jewish Child and Never Returned Him

 

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

SCROLL TO BOTTOM TO SEE REVISED INFO 

Recently, the Jewish world was shocked when Pope Francis labelled Israel’s attempt to remove Hamas from power as “terrorism.”  Attempts to have him walk it back have so far not been fruitful.  Let our minds take a tour of a true incident.

Imagine a seven-year-old Jewish boy taken away from his parents and never given back.  No.  This isn’t October 7th, 2023, but Bologna Italy, in 1858.

One of the pertinent lessons that we learned from Yehudah’s approaching Yoseph, the Egyptian viceroy in parshas Vayigash. was that it is important to stand up, respectfully, and call out immorality for what it is. 

A caveat, of course, is not to make things worse and engender more immorality – saichel must be used.

The purpose of standing up for a moral truth is to ensure that history does not repeat itself, and  that moral calamities that have happened in the past never happen again.

One case in point is the kidnapping of a young boy from Bologna, Italy, authorized by Pope Pius IX.  The story was made famous by the remarkable researcher, historian, and captivating author David Kertzer in his 1997 historical account of the horrid incident, entitled, “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.”

It was a Shabbos evening, June 23, 1858, when the police of the Papal States, of which Bologna was then part, arrived at the home of Momolo and Marianna Mortara. 

Their purpose? 

It was to seize one of their eight children, six-year-old Edgardo, and transport him to Rome to be raised by the Catholic church.

Essentially, a Catholic servant of a Jewish family had claimed, in her confession to a priest, to have poured water on a sick young Jewish boy for the purpose of baptizing him. She did not want the poor boy to burn in hell for not having been Christian.  The church took the child away – forever.  The pope stated that a “Catholic” child cannot be raised by Jews. 

Edgardo was taken to a house for Catholic converts in Rome, built with funds from taxes levied upon Jews. His parents were not allowed to see him for several weeks, and then never again alone. Pius IX took a personal interest in the case, and all appeals to the Church were rebuffed. The church so brainwashed the poor child that he eventually became a priest.

THE INTERNATIONAL PROTEST

At the time, protests were lodged by both Jewish organizations and prominent political and intellectual figures throughout the world, including Emperor Franz Ferdinand, President Grant and French Emperor Napoleon III.

Pope Pius IX was unmoved by these appeals, which mostly came from Protestants, atheists and Jews. When a delegation of prominent Jews saw him in 1859, he told them, “I couldn’t care less what the world thinks.” In 1865 he said, “I had the right and the duty to do what I did for this boy, and if I had to, I would do it again.”

THE ADDED CHUTZPAH

As an added chutzpah, the church sent him to try to convert Jews in New York City In 1897, but the Archbishop of New York, Michael Corrigan, told the Vatican that he opposed Mortara’s efforts to evangelize the Jews on the grounds that it was embarrassing and, well, awkward.

In a speech in 1871 he called the Jews of Rome “dogs” and said: “of these dogs, there are too many of them at present in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets, and they are disturbing us in all places.”

Edgardo died in Belgium in 1940, two months before the Nazis invaded.

The church had so indoctrinated Mortara into Catholic thought that when he wrote his memoirs years later (published in 2005 by Vittorio Messori) he stated that he had “always professed an inexpressible horror” toward Jews.  This was left out in Messori’s English translation from the original Spanish version where it originally appears.

THE MOVIE

In April 2016, word broke out that producer Steven Spielberg’s next movie would chronicle this story of a Jewish boy named Edgardo Mortara in Italy who was kidnapped and raised in the Catholic Church. Spielberh had initially purchased the rights to Kertzer’s book, a script was written by Tony Kushner, the man responsible for previous Spielberg scripts and actor Mark Rylance, was to portray Pope Pius IX.

It didn’t happen, and Spielberg allowed his option to produce it to expire this year.  Perhaps it may have been too controversial a topic to touch – even for Spielberg.  It is this author’s view that Spielberg or someone else should make the movie (or as my father a”h had suggested to me, to at least make a movie about someone making such a movie).

NEVER AN APOLOGY

The church never apologized for any of this.  Indeed, in the year 2000, Pope Pius IX was even ‘beautified,’ a step that has to happen before an official church declaration of “sainthood.”  At the time this transpired there were Jews who had led and held protests regarding the matter, including Mortara’s own great grand-niece Elena Mortara, a professor and published author.

THE SURVEY OF GEDOLIM

Some people have asked why do we care?  “The Catholic church has always had a strong history of anti-Semitism and we cannot change that,” – the thinking goes.  But should this really be our attitude?  In the 1980’s and 1990’s, I surveyed a number of Gedolei Yisroel about whether or not Jewish hishtadlus in Vatican Council II, when the Church had re-examined a number of their long-held views on Jews and Judaism, was appropriate hishtadlus or not.  The response was a definitive “yes.”

There is a fascinating alternative text to the Midrash Tanchuma, found in the Bodleian library in Oxfors University which may be instructive here.  There is a pasuk in the Torah that states Az yavdil Moshe – And then Moshe separated the future cities of refuge.  The Midrash states that the word “Az” indicates the recitation of Hallel or shira.  “Who said Shira?”, the Midrash asks. “Moshe said it.”

We see here that Moshe Rabbeinu was so concerned with the welfare and well-being of future fugitives that he recited Shira and Hallel over their good fortune in now having refuge cities – even though they were not yet born.

We need to be concerned about future Jewish children as well.  The story of what happened to a six year old Edgardo Mortara must be told and retold.  The movie should be made if that will get the message out that such immorality should never be tolerated – even if it comes from a leading religious figure. 

IF THE MOVIE IS MADE

If the movie is made, there is a scene that this author believes should be included.  This author carefully researched this material and it reflects on Pope Pius IX’s behavior – before he became a priest.  It deals with jilting a young woman on the day of her wedding.

Edward Craven Hawtrey (7 May 1789 – 27 January 1862) was the provost of Eton College from 1852-1862. Prior to that he was headmaster and an instructor of languages and a serious polyglot. He was featured as one of the six great Headmasters in F.D. How’s book of that name published in 1904.

By all accounts he was a moral, upright individual who would not have lied.

What follows is from “The Story of My Life” by Augustus J.C. Hare, printed years after the story had transpired – in 1896.

Provost Hawtrey before his death, he said to me that he knew I collected curious stories, and that there was one story, intimately connected with his own life, which he wished that I should write down from his lips, and read to him when I had written it, that he might see that it was perfectly correct.

THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY

Here is the story as theEton Provost gave it :

“In the time of my youth one of the cleverest and most agreeable women in Europe was Madame de Salis — the Countess de Salis — who had been in her youth a Miss Foster, daughter of the Irish Bishop of Kilmore. As a girl she had been most beautiful and the darling of her parents’ hearts, but she married against their will with the Count de Salis.

He was a Swiss Count, but he took her, not to Switzerland, but to Florence, where he rented a villa at Bellosguardo. There the life of Madame de Salis was a most miserable one : she had many children, but her husband, who cut her off from all communication with her friends, was exceedingly unkind to her. She was married to him for several years, and then she was mercifully released by his death.
It was impossible for her to pretend to be sorry, and she did not pretend it : she hailed it as the greatest mercy that could have befallen her. Madame de Sails Avent back to Ireland, where her parents, the old Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster (1744 – November 1797), were still alive, and welcomed her with rapture.
But she had left them a radiant, beautiful, animated girl ; she returned to them a haggard, weird, worn woman, with that fixed look of anguish which only the most chronic suffering can leave. And what was worst was that her health had completely given away : she never slept, she never seemed able to rest, she had no repose day or night : she became seriously ill.

“All the best advice that could be procured was hers. There was a great consultation of doctors upon her case, and after it had taken place, the doctors came to the Bishop and said, ‘ The case of Madame de Sails is an extraordinary one ; it is a most peculiar, but still a known form of hypochondria. She cannot rest because she always sees before her — not the horrible phantom which made her married life so miserable, but the room which was the scene of her suffering. And she never will rest; the image is, as it were, branded into her brain, and cannot be eradicated. There is only one remedy, and it is a very desperate one. It will probably kill her, she will probably sink under it, but it may have happy results. However, it is the only chance of saving her. It is that she should see the real room again. She can never get rid of its image : it is engraven upon her brain for life. The only chance is for her to connect it with something else.’ When Madame de Sails was told this, she said that her returning to Florence was impossible, absolutely impossible.

‘At any rate,’ she said, ‘I could not go unless my younger sister. Miss Foster, might go with me then possibly I might think of it.’ [It is right to say that a very different account of Count de Salis is given by many of his descendants from that which I wrote down from the narrative of Dr. Hawtrey 1860] But to this Dr. and Mrs. Foster would not consent.

The happiness of their lives seemed to have been extinguished when their elder daughter married Count de Salis, and if their beautiful younger daughter went abroad, perhaps she also would marry a foreigner, and then what good would their lives do them ?

However, Madame de Salis grew worse daily; her life was evidently at stake, and at last her parents said, “Well, if you will make us a solemn promise that you will never, under any circum- stances whatever, consent to your sister’s marrying a foreigner, she shall go with you.”

And she went. Madame de Salis and Miss Foster went to Florence. They rented the villa at Bellosguardo which had been the scene of the terrible tragedy of Madame de Salis’s married life.
As they entered the fatal room, Madame de Salis fell down insensible upon the threshold. When she came to herself, she passed from one terrible convulsion into another : she had a brain fever : she struggled for weeks between life and death. But nature is strong, and when she did rally, the opinion of the Irish doctors was justified. Instead of the terrible companion of her former life and the constant dread in which she lived, she had the companionship of her beautiful, gentle, affectionate sister, who watched over her with unspeakable tenderness, who anticipated her every wish. The room was associated with something else!

Gradually, very gradually, Madame de Salis dawned back into active life. She began to feel her former interest in art; in time she was able to go and paint in the galleries, and in time, when her recovery became known, many of those who had never dared to show their sympathy with her during her earlier sojourn at Florence, and who had pitied her intensely, hastened to visit her; and gradually, as with returning health her brilliant conversational powers came back, and her extraordinary gift of repartee was restored, her salon became the most recherche and the most attractive in Florence. Chief of all its attractions was the lovely Miss Foster.

When, however, Madame de Salis saw that any one especially was paying her sister attentions, she took an opportunity of alienating them, or, if there seemed to be anything really serious, she expressed to the individual her regret that she was unable to receive him anymore. But at last there was an occasion on which Madame de Salis felt that more stringent action was called for.

When a young Count Mastai (b. 1792), in the Guardia Nobile, not only felt, but showed the most unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, Madame de Salis did more than express to him her regret that untoward family circumstances prevented her having the pleasure of seeing him again ; she rented her villa at Bellosguardo, she packed up her things, and she took her sister with her to Rome.
The reputation of the two sisters had preceded them, and when it became known that the Madame de Salis who had had so romantic a history was coming to Rome with her beautiful younger sister, all that was most intellectual and all that was most remarkable in the old Papal capital gathered around them.
But now the scene had changed. It was no longer Madame de Salis who was the invalid. Miss Foster grew pale and languid and unable to occupy herself. Gradually she became so pale and so changed, and the cause of it was so evident, that Madame de Salis felt that she must choose between two alternatives : she must either break her word to her parents and save the life of her sister, or she must keep her promise to her parents and see her sister sink into the grave.

And she decided on the former course. She wrote two letters — one letter to Count Mastai, telling him that he might come back and see her sister again, and the other letter to the Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster. She said to her parents that she knew they measured a foreign marriage by her own dreadful life with Count de Salis: that in Count Mastai they must imagine the exact opposite of Count de Salis – that he was honorable, noble, chivalrous, generous, disinterested, — in fact, that had she to seek through the whole world the person to whom with the greatest confidence she could commit her sister’s happiness, she could not do otherwise than choose Count Mastai.

This letter she sent too late to have the refusal which she knew it would bring. Count Mastai flew to the feet of the beautiful Miss Foster, and was accepted at once. The wedding day was fixed, the wedding-dress was made, the wedding-feast was prepared. [Mrs. Fane de Salis told me that her mother–in-law had described to her being with Miss Foster on the Pincio when the handsome guardsman, Count Mastai, came courting.] “When the day came, all the friends of Madame de Salis collected in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where the marriage was to take place.

According to the custom of brides in Rome, Miss Foster, accompanied by Madame de Salis, came first to the altar and waited for the bridegroom. He never came — he never came at all — he never, never, never was heard of again. And that is the end of the first part of the story.

THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY

The second part of the story is quite different.

It was the time of the great famine and pestilence in the Basilicata. The misery was most intense. Hundreds perished daily everywhere. Everyone who could get away did.

Those who could went to Switzerland, others went to Sicily. Bishops abandoned their dioceses, priests abandoned their flocks. There was a general stampede.

But in that terrible time, as in all seasons of great national suffering, there were instances of extraordinary devotion and heroism. There was one young bishop of a Neapolitan diocese, who was absent in Switzerland at the time, who came back like San Carlo Borromeo over the Alps, who sold his library, who sold his carriages, who sold at last even his episcopal ring, who walked day and night in the hospitals, and by whose personal devotion many lives were saved, while thousands were cheered and encouraged by his example.

The consequence was, that when the famine and the pestilence in the Basilicata passed away, at an early age — at a much earlier age than is usual — that young bishop was made a cardinal. ” The third part of the story is again quite different.

It was when Pope Gregory XVI lay upon his deathbed ( 1846). There was the greatest possible difficulty about who should be his successor ; one member of the Sacred College was too old, another was too young, another was too much bound up with the princely families : there seemed to be no one.
The person who was of most influence at that time was Count Pellegrino Rossi, the French Ambassador, and he was very anxious for a liberal Pope, for someone who would carry out his own liberal views. One day as he was walking pensively, filled with anxieties, down the Corso, there passed by in a carriage that young bishop of the Basilicata, once Bishop of Iraola, now Archbishop of Spoleto, who had been so distinguished during the famine.

When Count Rossi saw him, he felt that is the man — that is the man who would further my ideas and carry out my views. And by the wonderful influence of Count Rossi on separate individuals, and by his extraordinary powers of combination in bringing the mind of one person to bear upon another, that person was chosen Pope.

And on the day on which he mounted the Papal throne as Pius IX, he revealed that he was the person who, as Count Mastai Ferretti in the Guardia Nobile, had been engaged to be married to the beautiful Miss Foster. He had belonged to a Jesuit family. He had been summoned on a Jesuit mission from which no one can shrink. His value to the Church had been estimated. He was sent off to the West Indies. Letters were intercepted, and lie was induced to believe that Miss Foster had ceased to care about him.
He was persuaded to take Orders. He became bishop in the Basilicata, Bishop of ImoLa, Archbishop of Spoleto, Pope of Rome — and Miss Foster lived to know it.

“Now,” said Dr. Hawtrey, “if you ever tell that story, recollect to say that it is no mere story I have heard – it is part of my own life. Madame de Salis and her sister were my relations, and I was most intimate with them. I was there when Madame de Salis made her miserable marriage ; I was there when she came back so terribly changed. I shared in the consultations as to whether her sister should go with her : I was with Dr. and Mrs. Foster when they received the letter about Count Mastai. I was there when they heard of the disappearance of the mysterious bridegroom: And I have lived to think of him as Pope.”

Up until now is the story of Provost Hawtrey of Pope Pius the Ninth. But we know Pope Pius the Ninth as the pope who kidnapped Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish child and never, ever, ever gave him back to his parents.

REVISED INFORMATION

After further research, however.  It seems that there were numerous errors that the Eton Provost made.

 I believe that Eton’s provost mis-remembered many of the details and confused things.  This is the revised information.

Letitia Dorothea Foster was born in 1792, the same year that Count Giovanni Mastai was born).  Letitia was the daughter of Reverend William Foster and Catherine Letitia Leslie.  When she was younger, she had a crush on John Staunton Rochford (born 1763) and something happened between them.  I believe that this happened sometime between 1810 and 1814.  She was 18 or so and he was 47.  I believe it was closer to 1810.  He was widowed in 1810 and he then married his first cousin, Mary Burgh in 1814.  She was the daughter of his mother’s brother – Thomas Burgh. 

In December, 1818, she married John Henry North, a prominent barrister in Ireland.  They had no children. 

Later in life, (Dec 3rd, 1827) Letitia mentioned this incident in a letter to her older sister MMe. La Comtesse de Salis in Pisa Italy, and, now being an older and wiser 35 year old woman and the wife of a prominent individual decries how parents do not see how a young woman could fall for a significantly older man right under their noses!

After this incident happened, Letitia and her older sister and her husband went to Rome, Italy and spent time there from 1814-1815.    It was there that Letitia met Count Giovanni Mastai, who had arrived in Rome in 1809 for higher studies.  In 1812, he suffered from some sort of disease – akin to epilepsy and he had to interrupt his studies.  He entered into the Papal Guard in 1815, but because of his illness was immediately discharged.

Giovanni Mastai met Letitia and fell madly in love with her.  He repeatedly proposed to her.  And she repeatedly declined all of his proposals.  Her sister and husband, Count de Salis, felt it prudent to move to Paris, perhaps because of the previous untoward incident with Rochford.

Later in life, Letitia told her niece, “We never drove out in Rome that Mastai was not sure to spring from behind some column or ruin – or otherwise suddenly appear. “ He stalked her.  Eventually he developed some sort of seizure and had to leave the Papal Guard.

Bereft of his romantic love and his career aspirations, he threw himself at the feet of Pope Pius VII who elevated him, and encouraged him toward theological studies. He served briefly in the Tata Giovanni Educational Institute, he participated as a catechist in 1816 in a memorable mission in Senigallia and, immediately thereafter, decided to enter the ecclesiastical state.

Count Mastaie became a priest in 1819.  And then, in 1846 he became Pope Pius IX.

It seems clear that he still harbored strong feelings for the young woman he had wished to marry, as shortly after he became Pope, he sent a gold and lapis lazuli tiara in a case to Henrietta de Salis who had discouraged the relationship between him and her sister Letitia.  He inscribed it with the words, “Presented to Henrietta, wife of Jerome, Count de Salis, by Pope Pius IX, in memory of past days.”

Letitia herself received a small parcel containing an engraving of himself I his pontifical robes.  Underneath were the words, “You made me pope.” [This information as well as photos of the gifts can be found in “Letters to the Countess,” published by N.C.F. De Salis, in 2014.]

When Mastai first became Pope he was a liberal.  He opened up the Jewish ghetto.  However, he eventually made a complete turnaround and reinstituted the ghetto.  In June of 1858, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (also called the Holy Office), the body of cardinals responsible for overseeing and defending Catholic doctrine, of which Pope Pius was the head sent the Papal police to take away a Jewish child who was allegedly baptized by a Catholic servant.  The six-year-old child’s name was Edgardo Mortara.

The parents made every effort to get back the kidnapped child.  It was in vain.  Eventually, Pope Pius IX adopted young Edgardo as his own child.  He sat him on his lap and told him that he was his son.  Eventually, Edgardo became a priest himself.

Was the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara a repercussion of the desperation seen in his younger years? Was his judgement so warped on account of this that he defied all moral decency in kidnapping and adopting this child? 

the author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com

Letitia Dorothea Foster1,2 

F, #387872, b. 1792, d. 28 November 1852

     Letitia Dorothea Foster was born in 1792.2 She was the daughter of Rt. Rev. William Foster and Catherine Letitia Leslie.3 She married John Henry North, son of Richard North and Lucinda Gouldsbury, on 28 November 1818.1,4 She died on 28 November 1852, without issue.1
     From 28 November 1818, her married name became North.1

Citations

1. [S47] BIFR1976 page 428. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S47]
2. [S2667] Sylvia McClintock, “re: McClintock Family,” e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 10 February 2008. Hereinafter cited as “re: McClintock Family.”
3. [S47] BIFR1976. [S47]
4. [S6289] The History of Parliament Online, online http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Hereinafter cited as History of 

Her father and siblings:

     Rt. Rev. William Foster was born in 1744.1 He was the son of Rt. Hon. Anthony Foster and Elizabeth Burgh.1 He married Catherine Letitia Leslie, daughter of Reverend Henry Leslie and Catherine Meredyth.1 He died in November 1797, with other issue.1
     He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin University, Dublin, County Dublin, IrelandG.1 He was Chaplain of the House of Commons between 1780 and 1789.1 He graduated with a Doctor of Divinity (D.D.)1 He held the office of Bishop of Cork and Ross on 14 June 1789.1 He held the office of Bishop of Kilmore in 1790.1 He held the office of Bishop of Clogher in 1796.1

Children of Rt. Rev. William Foster and Catherine Letitia Leslie

1. Elizabeth Foster+2
2. Hon. John Leslie-Foster+2 b. 1781, d. 9 Jul 1842
3. Catherine Foster+2 b. 1785, d. 5 Sep 1842
4. Henrietta Foster+2 b. 9 Oct 1785, d. 27 Oct 1856
5. Anna Elizabeth Foster+2 b. 1789, d. 15 Nov 1833
6. Letitia Dorothea Foster2 b. 1792, d. 28 Nov 1852
7. Reverend William Henry Foster+2 b. 1796, d. 1861

The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com