Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

The law in effect in Edgardo's town was "canon" (Catholic Church) law. When certain provisions of church law were applied to the Jews of Bologna in 1858, kidnapping was not a crime.

What kind of law would allow a child to be legally removed from his parents?

• The same law which allowed it for centuries, with very little resistance.



• The same law which required Jews to live in ghettoes (click on the video link for "Venice Ghetto") long before the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany.



• The same law which required Jews to wear an emblem on their clothes so everyone who saw them would know they were Jews. (In Modena, Italy, that emblem was a red ribbon which Jews wore on their hats.)

What kind of law would not only condone, but require, such things? Canon (church) law as it was applied to secular (non-church) life. On June 23, 1858, some of those laws were still in effect in the Italian Papal States. Laws like:

If a Jewish child is near death any Catholic can baptize the child EVEN IF the child's parents do not approve

AND

If a Jewish child has been baptized, the child is a Christian and cannot be raised in a Jewish home EVEN IF the home belongs to his parents.

Although canon law in Bologna no longer required Jews to work (as well as live) inside the ghetto, the baptism law was still in effect. So was the law proscribing where a baptized Jewish child (considered, thereafter, to be a Christian child) had to live.