An important event which for the last five months agitated the minds of Christians as well as Jews all over Europe and America seriously called for immediate and energetic action, and he considered it his duty to rouse himself, and step into the breach.
I refer to the case of the abduction of the child Edgar Mortara from the house of his parents at Bologna.
The first official information of this had been received by means of a letter from the President of the Council of the Israelite community of Turin, addressed to Sir Moses as President of the Board of Deputies. This letter was accompanied by a memorial from twenty-one Sardinian congregations, adverting briefly to the facts of this distressing case, detailing the measures they had adopted in reference thereto, and earnestly appealing to the Board of Deputies for its immediate co-operation.
The full details of the case are given in a memorial addressed to the Pontifical Government on behalf of the Mortara family, of which I give a short abstract.
"On the 24th of June 1858, in Bologna, the boy Edgar Mortara, under seven years of age, was snatched away from his Jewish parents under pretext of having been secretly baptised. The distressed father repeatedly but vainly applied to the authorities for an explanation of the circumstances which had led to the abduction of his son. It was only after several weeks that he was able in an indirect way to learn that Anna Morisi, a former servant in his house, had, many months previously, told another servant girl that, at the instigation of a certain Lepori, a druggist, she had baptised the child Edgar when no one was present, and when he was about one year old and dangerously ill. It was further said that this took place on an occasion when another of Mortara's sons was dying, and Morisi was urged by the other girl to baptise him also, which, however, she declined to do."
Mortara on these statements made the following observations:—
"1st. That it is true that the child Edgar, when a little more than one year old, was taken ill, but only of a slight ailment very common among children, and the child's state could not have created any serious apprehensions in the mind of any one, therefore the condition did not exist on which it is permitted to baptise the children of infidels invitis parentibus, viz., the certainty of an inevitable death. And, indeed, it would be in contradiction to the maxims of the Church on paternal authority to suppose such a thing authorised before the approach of death, which removes a child from the authority of his parents. Supposing for one moment that the confidence entertained by the parents in the recovery of their child were not shared by the over-zealous servant, it could not be supposed or maintained that on the erroneous supposition of a person the law could be diverted from its true meaning and from the established rules for its application.
"2nd. The event, as narrated, was not legally examined into, nor was any witness called or confronted. How is it then that while nobody can be legally deprived of the smallest of his possessions without incontestible proofs, now on a simple and bare assertion of a servant girl it is sought to establish a fact, the consequence of which is to rob a father and mother of their child? And indeed there are some important authorities on canonical law, who find the sole deficiency of evidence a sufficient reason to declare the nullity of baptisms under similar circumstances.
"3rd. The girl Morisi has spoken on the subject after five years of absolute silence. Therefore the suspicion is not without foundation that she could not perfectly recollect having then observed and fulfilled all the requirements of the baptismal rite with that zealous precision required for the validity of this sacramental act, and particularly as she had not then arrived at the sixteenth year of her age, and was as simple, ignorant, and inexperienced as could be."
After these considerations of the legal aspect of the case, he proceeds to some general arguments on which the Mortara family found a hope that the authorities in whose hands the decision rests will order the restoration of their child.
The memorial then points out the aversion and contempt resulting from an imposed religion, and shows that ever since the Church adopted the solemn principle, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," it tacitly acknowledged free-will in all, and, at the same time, its own inability to punish, although it might lament, the religious beliefs of others. It next argues that baptism conferred upon an unwilling adult being null and void, the same law should apply to a minor invitis parentibus, and declares that there is no power on earth within the bounds of justice and humanity that could impose upon a child a creed different to that received from the paternal precepts as long as the will of the father is that of the son. There is nothing on earth that belongs more legitimately to a father than his children. The baptism of an adult while asleep is void, as the free consent so essential to the sacramental act is wanting; why then, in the present case, where the subject was also asleep, should he be judged differently?
Then follows a series of references to high clerical authorities from the year 1587 down to 1840, who have, one and all, decreed the illegality of forced baptism, and the necessity of restitution in cases of abduction.