Noble Blood - The Pope's Kidnapped Child

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

In 1858, a Jewish child was taken from his family. They said that because the boy had been secretly baptized, he was now a ward of the Papal States. And his new adoptive father would be none other than Pope Pius IX.  Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. The year was 1851, and in Bologna, a little boy was sick. That's what his nurse said anyway. was a little Jewish boy, and she was a Catholic nurse, working for the family in violation of the law, but she genuinely cared about the children. She cared about this littlest boy, Edgaro. She swore she did, and it broke her heart that he was sick. The nurse was a young woman herself. The little boy's illness had gotten so bad that she believed he would die.

She confided in a friend who said it was the merciful thing to baptize the little boy before he died. The parents would never have to know. Yes, the Catholic Church technically forbade baptizing Jews, but it also believed in the sacrament that could save the innocent baby's soul when it went back to heaven. The nurse believed in that too. She looked at the little child so sickly in her arms, so small. And she did a fateful thing. She filled a glass with water, reached inside, wet her fingers, and sprinkled the water across the boy's head. She didn't know then that her action, performed in the privacy of an empty room, would set off a chain reaction that would lead to a scandal of international proportions.

It would lead to a state kidnapping, the heartbreak of a family, the murder charge of a father, countless New York Times headlines, and Napoleon III himself, turning against the papal states in favor of the unification of Italy. Because this little boy, Edgaro Mortara, did not die during infancy. He lived on, happy with his Jewish family who loved him until the age of six. That was when the Carabinieri burst into his family's home, claiming that the child had been baptized, and therefore was a Catholic, that the boy was the rightful charge of the Catholic Church, and that he should be protected not just by anyone in the church,

but by the Pope himself. The Mortara case is the story of Jews under the Catholic papacy, of a long-forgotten event in Italy before and after unification, of the Pope's fidelity to the letter versus the spirit of Catholic doctrine, of an international scandal that supercharged liberal Europeans' understanding of religious freedom. And it's the story of one little Jewish boy, kidnapped by the papacy, and a family that put everything on the line to get him back. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. In order to understand what happened to Edgar Mortara, you need a quick crash course in the history of

the Jews under papal rule. In 1851, when Edgara was born, Italy was not a unified nation. Bologna was part of the Papal States, which meant that Vatican law was the law of the land. Edgarda was born during the papacy of Pope Pius I. When the total population of the papal states was around 3 million, including 15,000 Jews, which made Jews a tiny minority. at 0.5% of the population. As you might imagine, the role of Jews under papal rule had been contested for centuries by the time Edgardo came along. In Bologna, the 900-person Jewish population had been expelled in the 16th century. By the time Edgaro's family lived there, there were only about 200 Jews in all of Bologna. In Rome, the papacy had confined Jews to the

Roman ghetto since 1555. Shortly after Pope Pius the 9th was elected in 1846, he actually tore down the ghetto's gates, but he restored them shortly after, and they would remain up until Italian unification in 1870. If it sounds like Pope Pius was pretty uncertain where he stood when it came to Jews, well, he was. Although Catholic doctrine held that baptism could save a person. soul, Catholics were barred from baptizing Jews. Then again, things got a little dicey with the law if

the Jewish person was a child, much less a baby, and if that innocent was about to die. And then dicey again, if a Catholic did baptize a Jew, that was a holy and irrevocable sacrament, so the Jewish person illegally baptized was holy Catholic. And it was illegal for a Catholic child to be raised by a Jewish household. You might be able to see where this is going for poor Edgar and his family. But there's one more thing you need to know before we can return to Edgaro's story. At the time when Edgar was born, Catholics were legally prohibited from working for Jewish families. But many young Catholic girls in need of money took jobs as maids anyway,

and many claiming that their young charges, were on the brink of death, which may have been true in at least some of the cases, wound up baptizing the family's children. Anywhere from months to years later, the carabinieri would show up at a family's door with news that their child was a Catholic and they would take the child away. It got so bad that before a Catholic maid left the job, Jewish families took to getting her sign an affidavit attesting that she had never baptized their child. Which brings us to Anna Morisi. She was 14 years old by some accounts, 18 by others, when she took a job caring for the Mortara household. The heads of the household, Momolo and Mariana Mortara, were devoted parents to their

nine children, including twin girls, one boy who died in infancy, and of course their middle little child, Edgar. And they were also unusually devoted to Anna Morisi. The girl had been with the family for three years when she fell pregnant. It was 1855, and Edgar was about four years old. Papel law was no kinder to unwed Catholic mothers than it was to Jews. In Anna Morisi's situation, she would be required to give the baby up to a foundling house. Many families in the Mortara's his situation would have cast Anna Morisi out. She had shamed herself and the family. Getting rid of her would have been the accepted, even the expected thing to do. But Momolo and Mariana were unusually compassionate. They paid for her to stay with a midwife during her last trimester, covered the cost of the

supervised delivery of her child, and then they brought her back to their home. They had no idea what she had already done to their family. What was in the works behind the scenes? They didn't see the irony that history now sees. Anna Marisi forced to give up her baby by the unforgiving laws of the papal state had already set in motion the loss of someone else's baby to those same laws. The knock on the door came on June 23, 1858. The light was dispersing. The air was dispersing. The air was warm. The smells of dinner were wafting through the homes on the Martara's street. Edgarra was sleeping soundly. His two older brothers, one younger brother and infant sister, were sleeping too. His older two twin sisters were chatting idly with their mother, Mariana,

sewing at the table. Edgaro's oldest brother was out on a walk with their father, Mololo. And Mariana opened the door. The carabinieri were standing outside. They were firm in their orders that they were to come in. Perhaps in the edges of their gaze there was some sense of shame of what they were about to do, but they were firm when they asked to see her children. Mariana panicked. Momolo came home and the policeman addressed him directly. They were here to take Edgar.

He had been baptized and therefore did not belong to his Jewish parents anymore. He was in the legal custody of the state. Mariana screamed. She ran to six-year-old Edgaro, threw herself on top of him. She held him to her chest, fingers digging into her skin. If you want him, she said,

you'll have to kill me first. The scene was disastrous. According to historian David Kurtzer, Amortara neighbor reported, quote, I saw a distraught mother, bathed in tears, and a father who was tearing out his hair, while the children were down on their knees,

begging the policeman for mercy. It was a scene so moving I can't begin to describe it. Indeed, I even heard the police marshal, by the name of Lucidi, say that he would rather have been ordered to arrest a hundred criminals than to take the boy away. One more day, the family begged the Inquisitor, Father Pieto Gaetano Feletti, just 24 more hours with our precious boy, please. Father Feletti granted the 24 hours, but no more. He was just following orders, after all. In the meantime, Momolo, their Jewish neighbors and Mariana's family, set off to find a way to keep Edgar. They went to the cardinal, the archbishop, the inquisitor, trying to get an audience with anyone in government who might intercede. But 24 hours was too few.

They were trapped. They were Jews in a place where there was no safe place to be a Jew. Jews had lived in Italy for thousands of years, back to the Roman period before Christians lived there. It didn't matter to the Mortara case now. When the 24-hour grace period was up, Mariana's sister took Edgaro's brother and sisters to her house. Mariana would not let go of her son, kissing him and clutching him, and everyone feared what would happen if the police had to forcibly rip her son away from him. Would she attack them? Would she have a heart attack and die right there?

She hadn't fed her infant daughter in too long as it stood. What would happen to her? So the men of the family forcibly separated Mariana from the boy and carried her outside into a waiting carriage. Even through the covered carriage, her wails were so loud and terrible that neighbors came running to see what was happening. Momola stayed home, packed a few clothes for his son, and then held Agardo on his lap, until his little boy was taken away. The two policemen cried when they took the boy away,

but they didn't stop. They were just following orders. Momolo followed the police outside as they carried his son to the carriage. Watching his boy so small in the arms of these strangers, he couldn't stay on his feet. he swayed for a moment and then he fainted. There was one light at the end of the tunnel, he was told. The boy's new surrogate father was not going to be just anyone.

He would be the Pope himself. After that, Mariana fell apart, but Moimolo fought. The first thing to do was to find out if the carabiniere's justification for kidnapping Edgardo was even true in the first place. Who would have baptized? the boy, and how had that news come out? The only reasonable culprit would have been the family's old servant, Anna Marisi. With Momolo's blessing, Mariana's brother and brother-in-law found her. When she saw them, she collapsed in tears. Yes, she said, when Edgardo was very sick as a child,

she had done the fateful thing. She had baptized him. But she had regretted it soon after he recovered and told no one. When later another Mortara's son did get so sick that he died in infancy, she had refused to do the same thing again. She had learned her lesson. She told her friend so when asked if she had baptized that boy before he died. All the Mortara representatives could hear was that last part. She had told her friend. But there was reason for hope in her story. It wasn't clear that she knew how to properly perform a baptism. She had been so young at the time, 14, by her own account, that her judgment was faulty. They asked if she would be willing to record her testimony with a notary.

She agreed. She seemed genuinely distressed to have caused the separation of another mother from her child. But by the time the group came back with a notary, Anna Marisi had disappeared. Momolo did not give up. Anna Morisi had done what turned out to be a terrible thing, but she was only a young girl who couldn't read, who was just following what seemed like good advice. She hadn't met to hurt the Mortara family. Surely some justice would be served. Momolo learned that Edgaro had been taken all the way to Rome. He wrote to the Inquisitor, the Secretary of State, to the Pope himself. He traveled all the way to Rome, where he was a... allowed visitation with Edgaro, but at the end of his visits, he was not allowed to take his son

back home. The sympathies of the world were not with the Pope. While a handful of Catholic publications supported the removal of a baptized child from a Jewish home, this was the mid-19th century, not the 16th century anymore. The ideals of civil liberties and religious freedom were spreading all over the globe. Already in 1848, 10 years before Edgaros kidnapping, the Kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia had given its minority Jewish and Protestant populations their religious freedoms. Massimo de Zeglio, Prime Minister of Piedmont, had written a pamphlet called, quote, on the civil emancipation of the Israelites. So the European and American presses both covered the Mortara kidnapping as a scandal.

The New York Times ran 20 articles about it in December 1858 alone, nearly one per day. Outraged popular demonstrations broke out on both sides of the Atlantic, advocating for the Pope to give Edgar back to his family. Even in Catholic France, the ambassador to the Holy See met with the Vatican Secretary of State and the Pope himself on Edgaro's behalf, celebrated French playwright Victor Sejor wrote a play based on the kidnapping called The Fortune Teller. Le Sique, France's most read newspaper, described the play as documenting, quote, the hideous attack committed by the Holy See toward the Mortara boy. The play drew 100,000 people to the theater.

On opening night, December 22, 1859, Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie were prominently present in the audience. Rumors swirled that Napoleon's private secretary had actually worked with the playwright on the play. None of it mattered. At the end of the day, Edgaro and the Mortaras were under papal authority, and the Pope wanted the boy. Indeed, Pope Pius I spent substantial time with with no son of his own, the Pope viewed Edgaro as a kind of son. In 1867, the Pope sent a shockingly self-pitying note to Edgar, which said, quote, you are very dear to me, my little son, for I acquired you for Jesus Christ at a high price. Your case set a worldwide storm against me. The rulers of the world, as well as the journalists, who are the truly powerful people of our

times declared war on me. Monarchs themselves entered the battle against me, and all this because of you. People lamented the harm done to your parents because you were regenerated by the grace of holy baptism, and in the meantime, no one showed any concern for me, father of all the faithful. And in a true tragedy for the Mortara family, Edgaro came to regard the Pope as a father. was only six years old when he was taken from his Jewish family and re-educated to believe that his was a story of Catholic salvation and redemption for a life that might otherwise have been lived in a kind of spiritual darkness without the light of Catholic teachings. At 13, the age of Bar Mitzvah had he been allowed to remain under the care of his parents,

Edgardo rechristened himself with the name Pio in honor of Pius the 9th. Finally, in 1870, when Edgaro was 19 years old, his parents' most ardent wish came true. Italian unification succeeded. Rome was captured for the new kingdom of Italy. Their son, Edgar, was no longer under the legal authority of the Pope. He could come home now. Momolo had not seen his son in 12 years, but he had never given up on his love for him. Momolo made his way to Rome to bring his son home at last.

His mother would once again hold her son in her arms. But Edgaro was Pio now. He only feared his father's return to Rome. Pio refused to return. For the rest of Edgaro's life, he devoted him. himself to Catholicism, the religion of his captors. At 21, too young for ordination, he received a special dispensation to become a priest. The Pope sent him a letter of congratulations. Edgaro read nine languages, including Hebrew, and traveled all over Europe preaching the Catholic

faith. It would be another hundred years before the term Stockholm syndrome was coined to describe the bond between a captive and their captor. As for the Mortara's, yet more tragedy befell them. In 1871, their new servant, Rosa Tognazi, tragically died after a fall that was almost certainly a suicide. Nonetheless, suspicion fell on the man who was called, quote, the Jew Mortara throughout his trial. Even the prosecutors called the 55-year-old Momolo by that anti-Semitic epithet, rather than the customary term, the defendant, Mortara. The trial was almost certainly motivated by anti-Jewish hostility. Momolo was ultimately found not guilty, but he had spent seven months in prison in ill health, and one month after his release, he died. Seven years later,

in 1878, Mariana, widowed now, found out that Edgar was scheduled to pre-year-old. in France, she went to where he would be. For the first time in 20 years, mother and son embraced. From then until her death 12 years later, Edgar remained close with his mother, but neither ever warmed to the other's desire that they change religions. Edgardo's that his mother convert to Catholicism, Marianas that her son return to Judaism. Edgaro lived a long life, preaching the whole time. On March 11th, 1940, he died at the age of 88 in Belgium. His story has been forgotten compared to the more famous 19th century European case of anti-Semitism, the Dreyfus affair, but he prefigured it. Some historians actually believe that the

Edgardo Mortara kidnapping played a major role in turning Napoleon III toward the side of Italian unification. Indeed, Napoleon was secretly party to the agreement in support of unifying much of the papal states under the authority of Sardinia only one month after Adgaro's kidnapping. Two months after Edgar died in Belgium, the Nazis invaded the country. If he had lived, he might have been among those stolen once again, this time by different policemen working for a different state, for the crime of being born under a hostile regime into a Jewish home. That's the story of Edgaro Mortara, the Jewish child kidnapped by the

papal state. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about Edgaro's legacy in the Mortara family today. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from stepbrothers anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo. Woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall

and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeartRadio app.

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day. And I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through. And I know it's a place they come. look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah. be... Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As for the Mortara family, the story of Edgaro still had a long life. One of Edgaro's twin sisters on her deathbed 70 years after the abduction cried out not to take her children. The great-granddaughter of that sister, a scholar named Elena Mortara, is now a scholar who published a 2015 book with Dartmouth University Press about the affair. She spoke out on her

family's behalf against the bedification of Pope Pius the 9, quote, a man who has so unjustly violated family rights, an enemy of freedom of religion, the last Pope to keep the Jews of Rome by law in the ghetto. Pope Pius 9th was bedified in the year 2000. The Mortara fan. The Morterra family family of the 21st century opposed it. What would Edgardo himself have thought? We can't know. What we do know is that he remained a devout Catholic priest until the end of his life. Countless times, Edgar Mortara must have wedded his hands, as his nursemaid did, decades before, and sprinkled holy water over a young infant's head. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimmin' Mild from Air,

Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Melani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Il Kali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah.

It would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.