Clémentine Portier-Kaltenbach 12:43 p.m., September 7, 2021
How about finding out that your domestic worker secretly baptized your child, without asking your opinion?
This is the whole drama of the famous Mortara affair, which led to an international scandal in the 1850s. It happened in Bologna in Italy on June 23, 1858.
That day, papal guards accompanied by some representatives of the Bolognese municipal police disembark at Salomon and Marina Mortara and their 8 children, a family of Jewish faith, and seize Manu militari of Edgardo, their 7-year-old son.
One can easily imagine the scene: stupor, cries of indignation, tears… The papal envoys come before their eyes to kidnap their son.
It’s amazing!
But they have the right: Bologna is the second city of the papal states after Rome, so, here, the Pope has all power!
But all the same, to take a child away from its parents?
In fact, 5 years ago, Edgardo was seriously ill.
His family believed him lost.
The servant of the Mortara, Ana Morisi, a good little Catholic of 14, believing that he was going to die baptized him in secret.