The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (35 page)

Just a week earlier, in one of his first official acts, the new governor general of Romagna proclaimed freedom of religion and the equality of all citizens before the law. Jews were now, for the first time since Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire—with the brief exception of the Napoleonic period—to enjoy the same rights as Christians. In November 1859, just seventeen months after the Inquisitor had ordered Edgardo seized, Luigi Carlo Farini, dictator of the former duchies of Modena and Parma, and Governor of Romagna, issued a declaration abolishing the Inquisition. Denouncing the inquisitorial court as “incompatible both with civilization and with the most basic principles of public and civil rights,” it noted that civilized nations everywhere had already done away with such courts, and that only in the Papal States did they remain.
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The Archbishop lost no time doing what he could to protect his diocese from the influence of all the anticlerical writings that appeared in the wake of the Austrians’ departure. At the end of August he issued a notice, printed on large sheets of paper and posted on churches throughout the diocese, warning people of the “grave danger” that these publications posed. “We are distressed to see insults and profanities hurled at the Sacred Person of the one who, possessing the supreme authority of the Church, should be the object of our veneration and our love.” After condemning, as well, the alarming upsurge in offensive theatrical performances, Viale-Prelà concluded: “We strongly recommend that you follow the example of the faithful of the primitive Church, of those of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles, who threw evil books into the flames.”
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The problem persisted, and so the Cardinal issued yet another ecclesiastical warning a few months later, in early December, alerting his flock to the “pernicious and reprehensible means being employed to destroy your faith … and to drag the unwary and the ignorant into the deadly abyss of heresy.… Toward this end,” the Archbishop continued, “ungodly little books are being offered and sold to you at low cost, heaping hatred and mockery on the saintly
Catholic Church, trampling its authority, and ridiculing its doctrine.” Viale-Prelà concluded his new appeal, as he had the last, with the fervent hope that the faithful would treat these publications as they deserved, “throwing them in the flames, as we know some of you have already done.”
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The battle was joined, fought on the one side through ecclesiastical proclamations and ritual sanctions and on the other by popular demonstrations and a spate of journalistic attacks. Enrico Bottrigari, in September, offered the patriots’ view of Cardinal Viale-Prelà’s battle against the new regime: “Our Archbishop, as could be expected, remains hostile to the new order of things and publishes Notifications full of lies, trying to make people believe that pious acts and sacred functions are being opposed or prevented.” Some priests, Bottrigari reported, had cooperated with the new rulers, but the Archbishop had moved quickly to suspend them from their ecclesiastical offices.
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The ritual struggle was a two-way affair. Far from being a Church monopoly, ritual served as the primary means by which the new rulers constructed their regime, covering themselves with the mantle of legitimacy, instructing people in their ideology, and rousing them to a state of excitement.
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Most galling of all for Bologna’s embattled Archbishop was the constant stream of requests from the usurpers to involve priests in the counter-rites of the new state, in a brazen attempt to use the Church to legitimize the new regime.

Bologna’s patriotic elite needed to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the people of Romagna fully supported the new regime and wanted to be part of the kingdom of Sardinia. The elite also faced the problem of instructing the overwhelmingly illiterate population in just what the new state consisted of, making them feel part of it, and convincing them that they were happy about it. Publishing newspapers that sang the praises of the new state and attacked the Pope was all well and good, but only a small portion of the population could read them. And reading an article that claimed that the people of Bologna were enthusiastic about the new government was considerably less convincing, and less emotionally engaging, than participating with thousands of others in mass rites in which the sacred symbols of the new order were trotted out and the new sacred songs sung.

In the early days following the flight of the Cardinal Legate from Bologna, when the old regime had been battered but it was not yet clear that it would not return, public ritual filled a pressing need for order, for definition of political reality amidst chaos, and for reaffirming bonds of fellowship at a time of potential fratricide. For Bologna’s new rulers, the main task was getting people to shift their allegiances from the Church and Rome to the King and Italy. Just as the succession of leaders of the French Revolution devoted great
energies to crafting public rites to help define and legitimize the new political order for the aroused but confused masses, so too did Bologna’s leaders put together an exhausting—but hopefully exalting—series of new patriotic rites.
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When the newly formed Assembly of Romagna held its first meeting, in Bologna, on the first of September, 1859, delegates unanimously approved two resolutions. With echoes of the American Declaration of Independence, they proclaimed: “We, the representatives of the people of Romagna, convened in general assembly, swearing the righteousness of our intentions to God, do declare: (1) That the peoples of Romagna … no longer want pontifical, temporal government; (2) That the peoples of Romagna want annexation to the constitutional Kingdom of Sardinia, under the scepter of Victor Emmanuel II.”
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The Assembly sent representatives to present these resolutions to the King. Their return from Turin, with a friendly message from Victor Emmanuel II in hand, was taken as a proper occasion for ritually marking the link between the people of Romagna and their not-quite-yet monarch. The Bologna City Council was the first to take the initiative, proclaiming a day of popular festivity to give thanks to the Almighty. Given the historical connotations of San Petronio—the massive church on Piazza Maggiore where Charles had been crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1530—it was there that the Christian part of the ritual would have to take place. Following a Te Deum sung in the church, a ceremony would be held placing the glorious coat of arms of the House of Savoy above the main gate of the Palazzo Comunale. And, in a further symbolic transubstantiation, Piazza Maggiore itself would be rechristened: the sacred center of Bologna would take the new name of Piazza Victor Emmanuel. To mark the occasion, finally, a marble plaque would be put up on the front of the palace, recording the great day for prosperity.

The rites that October day went largely according to plan; the cavernous San Petronio released its huge crowd at the end of the Te Deum to mingle with the multitudes already gathered in the piazza. Amidst great enthusiasm and the stirring music of patriotic bands, the Savoyard coat of arms was raised, artillery was sounded, and church bells were rung. Yet something was missing. The Archbishop had instructed the priests of San Petronio not to take part in the event. Since it was inconceivable to have such a rite without the clergy, chaplains from the local military regiment—who were not under the Archbishop’s authority—were brought in to do the honors. Cardinal Viale-Prelà himself arranged to be out of town on the day of the celebrations, saying mass instead in one of the rural parishes of his diocese. He was no longer a well man—indeed, although not old, he did not have much longer to live—and as he raised the host in preparation for offering communion that
day, he fell to the ground in a faint. Commenting on this juxtaposition, the uncharitable Bottrigari wrote: “Political events are giving the Cardinal severe indigestion!”
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The patriotic rites enacted in Bologna were repeated in communities throughout Romagna, tying the people to the new government and demonstrating their new Savoyard loyalties to the rest of the world, especially to the Catholic powers who needed to be convinced that it was the people themselves who wanted to shift their political allegiance from the Pope to the King. In community after community the same ritual battle was joined, as parish priests, under orders from the Archbishop, refused to preside over the sacrilegious ceremonies and did what they could to keep the secular celebrants out of their churches altogether.

In San Lazzaro di Savena, just outside Bologna, the ceremonies were scheduled for a Sunday in late October. At the conclusion of the morning’s first mass, the parish priest announced that the second mass was canceled. He then locked the church door and left. When the local dignitaries arrived at the church for the patriotic ceremonies, scheduled to coincide with the second mass of the day, they were chagrined to discover it locked and ordered the police to force the door open. They then rustled up a military chaplain, who presided as a solemn Te Deum was sung, thanking God for the deliverance of Romagna to the Savoyard kingdom.

Unamused at the parish priest’s rebuff, the civil authorities immediately ordered him, along with a clerical colleague deemed to be his co-conspirator, sent into exile in Piedmont. When Cardinal Viale-Prelà heard what had happened, he lodged a protest with the Governor of Romagna—the same man who, two months before, had proclaimed religious freedom in the newly liberated territory—arguing that in beating down the doors of the San Lazzaro church the government had violated a sacred place and trampled on the rights of members of the clergy. The Archbishop demanded that the two priests be returned to their parishes immediately. Leonetto Cipriani, Romagna’s first governor—recently returned from exile in California—replied that the two priests had been sent away for their own good, to protect them from the patriotic wrath of their own parishioners. The Governor promised to permit the priests to return just as soon as popular anger had subsided. Not long thereafter, under Romagna’s new governor, Luigi Farini, the clergymen were in fact allowed back. Their case was hardly an isolated one. In the summer of 1859 alone, six priests of the Bologna diocese were exiled, five jailed, and twenty-four given official warnings.
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Luigi Carlo Farini, who became governor of Romagna in November, had not always been an antagonist of the Church, and had even served as a minister in the short-lived constitutional government of the Papal States in 1848,
before Pius IX was routed from Rome. However, by 1859 he had changed his loyalties, and he wanted to move quickly to solidify the new regime. In mid-November, Farini proclaimed that the laws of the Kingdom of Sardinia would be extended to the areas under his control; later in the month, he announced the end to the separate governments of Romagna and the former duchies of Modena and Parma. The result was a single entity that would serve as the basis for the region of Emilia-Romagna, with its capital in Bologna, a territory that remains today one of Italy’s twenty regions. To link this new government to the Kingdom of Sardinia, Farini proclaimed that from January 1, 1860, the region would bear the name of the
Royal
Provinces of Emilia, and coins would be minted bearing the likeness of the King.

Heading a government that claimed lands taken from two dukes and the Pope, Farini knew who the enemy was and what had to be done to hold on to power. At the end of November 1859, he wrote: “I will fortify Bologna as necessary. Good soldiers and good cannons against all those who want to fight annexation. This is my policy. And I don’t give a damn about scruples. Without hanging me and burning down Parma, Modena, and Bologna, God knows that neither dukes nor priests will be returning here.”
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In Rome, the Pope and his Secretary of State refused to believe that Romagna was lost for good. On December 10, Odo Russell, in a confidential memo to the Foreign Office in London, reported that since September the Pontiff had become extremely irritable, venting his rage “indiscriminately before those who approach his presence in acrimonious invectives against the Emperor Napoleon and his Ambassador in Rome.”
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For the Pope and the Church, however, even greater ignominy lay ahead.

CHAPTER 18
The Inquisitor’s Arrest

F
ATHER
F
ELETTI HAD SEEN
the Cardinal Legate flee, angry mobs gather outside the Archbishop’s gate, the new rulers perform their sacrileges in the basilica of San Petronio, parish priests warned, arrested, and exiled, and, most close to home, the Inquisition denounced as a barbaric vestige of the Middle Ages, intolerable in a civilized society. He had little reason to feel confident that the new rulers would leave him alone.

The topsy-turvy political developments that so pained Father Feletti appeared to the Mortara family as providential, offering a new ray of hope that their son would soon be freed. The Pope had made it plain that he would never willingly give up Edgardo, but his ability to keep the boy depended on the continuation of his temporal reign. Once he lost control of the police, all the ecclesiastical law and Church precedent cited by the Pope’s learned advisors would not avail him. Edgardo would be returned to his parents.

The family had moved out of Bologna shortly after Marianna and Momolo returned from Rome to find that little was left of his once-flourishing business. Marianna did not want to remain in the city that, for her, conjured up only wretched memories. Fortunately, the Rothschild family had offered the Mortaras enough money to pay off their debts and establish a home elsewhere. Their choice of destination seemed natural at the time: they moved to Turin, where Jews were free, where the Inquisition had long since been abolished, where their children would be safe. They would join the Jewish community that had championed their cause and that would help Momolo start up his new business.
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