The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (43 page)

“I just paid Agostini for the expenses that he and the boy incurred on their trip. I gave him the four scudi purely as a tip, for his inconvenience, as he himself is the father of a family.”

The magistrate turned next to the question of the baptism itself. When Momolo Mortara had first come to see the Inquisitor, while the police were stationed by his son’s side back at the house, he had asked him why he believed that Edgardo had been baptized. Why had the Inquisitor offered no explanation?

“I told the Jew Mortara that his son had been baptized, but I could not give him any explanation because of the oath by which I am bound.”

“Well,” Carboni demanded, “at least now explain and justify how, when, and by whom the boy was baptized, how news of it got to the Holy Office, and what efforts were made to verify it before ordering the separation of a Christian boy from his Jewish family.”

“The Supreme Sacred Congregation, having recognized the boy’s baptism to be valid, ordered me to have him sent to Rome to the College of the Catechumens. The Supreme Sacred Congregation is aware of every act, every bit of investigation that was believed to be necessary for this purpose, and it alone may provide you with the details on that investigation.”

Carboni was annoyed:

“Enough, Reverend Father, of this evasive way of responding, which not only precludes you from any useful means of defense, but may give rise to some interpretations that are unfavorable to you.”

“I am truly sorry you think I am being evasive in answering the questions about the investigation undertaken into the Mortara boy’s baptism. When I have been interrogated about things I can talk about, I have responded straightforwardly with what clarity I can. But about the things you are now asking me I cannot respond at all without permission from the Supreme Sacred Congregation in Rome.”

“Since you do not want to or you cannot produce the records that we have asked you for, at least tell me who it was who reported Edgardo’s baptism, and which persons were interviewed to verify it.”

“The oath that one takes calls God as witness of that truth or act that is being asserted, and the violation of this oath brings divine punishment. I am more concerned about the salvation of my soul than about any punishment inflicted in this world simply as a result of my obeying the orders that were given me by the Head of the Catholic Church by means of the Sacred Congregation. I do not wish to incur divine punishment by violating the oath of secrecy that I gave with regard to the acts of the Holy Office.”

But, the Magistrate asserted, you can rightly say that you did not voluntarily break your oath but were compelled to do so in order to defend yourself in a criminal trial.

“I leave my defense in God alone, in the Most Holy Virgin Mother of Mercy, who is the refuge of all sinners, and in the intercession of the prayers that the child Edgardo Mortara raises before God for me, which I learned about many months ago from someone in Rome who works for the Pope.”

Since you have refused to offer any proof of what you say, Carboni told the friar, this court has had to do everything it could to discover the truth. We have interviewed Anna Morisi and heard her story of having baptized Edgardo. “But,” he added, “aside from her statement, we have not been able to obtain any other confirmation. Indeed, her assertion not only was found to be exaggerated, because at the time of that illness the boy was never in danger of dying, but it was denied by the very people who were cited to prove it.” And none of these witnesses, said Carboni, reported ever being summoned by the Inquisitor so that their testimony could be heard. “I call on you once and for all,” the magistrate implored, “to abandon your stubborn silence and tell me that you did not order the Mortara child taken away simply on Anna Morisi’s assertion alone.”

“I have already said that when I am asked about acts regarding the Holy Office I cannot respond. Let me only say that the order for taking the Mortara boy came to me from the Supreme Sacred Congregation, which certainly had the proof necessary to reach such a finding.”

Carboni was not to be put off. The timing of Anna Morisi’s testimony about the baptism, he said, should have led you to view it with suspicion. She had just left the Mortaras’ service following a heated argument and was likely to be angry and bitter toward them, ripe for a vendetta. Adding to such suspicion, said Carboni, was the proof that he had collected from many sources of the young woman’s dishonesty and lack of loyalty. In the light of all this, asked the magistrate, do you still remain silent about the efforts you made to establish the truth of the alleged baptism?

“I reply once more that I cannot give you any response.”

The end was near. Carboni had prepared a draft of his findings, which would soon be sent to the court for the final phase of the trial. Before leaving Father Feletti after this, their last duel, he read it to the friar. He pointed to the lack of any evidence to support the friar’s claim that he had acted on higher orders. Moreover, the Inquisitor had done nothing to verify Anna Morisi’s story about having baptized the child years earlier, despite ample reasons for doubting it. The magistrate added that the taking of the child had upset the whole city and aroused the condemnation of the press; he described the scene of a mother wailing, of a father tearing out his hair, and of policemen
who were themselves moved to tears by the inhumane task the Inquisitor had given them. Do you contest the fact that by this course of conduct you have made yourself liable for punishment? asked Carboni.

Father Feletti had his last chance to respond to the magistrate before the case went to the judges.

To your narration of the facts I have nothing to oppose, except to note that I gave the orders best designed to lessen the pain of the boy’s mother and father. But I don’t know by what law you can proceed against me for having carried out an order that I received from the Supreme Sacred Congregation of Rome two years ago under a government that was legally recognized by all the Powers of Europe.…

It isn’t true that this action upset the whole city, because when people learned that the Mortara boy was taken away because he had been baptized, no one talked about it anymore. As for the newspapers, there were other papers that were moderate and full of good sense. They spoke of the case with those fair and just ideas that are required in dealing with a religious matter.

I commiserate with the Mortara parents for their painful separation from their son, but I hope that the prayers of the innocent soul succeed in having God reunite them all in the Christian religion.

As for my order to De Dominicis to take the boy, I gave it in writing in the name of the supreme authority, and I told him to show it to the Mortaras themselves just so that they would not think that it was simply my own personal order.

Finally, after insisting that Edgardo might well have been at risk of dying from his illness—for it did not take much to kill a baby—the former inquisitor concluded: “As for my punishment, not only do I place myself in the Lord’s hands, but I would argue that any government would recognize the legitimacy of my action.”
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The magistrate had had enough. He passed the transcript of the interrogation to the jailed friar and was no doubt surprised when Father Feletti signed it.

The following day, March 7, Carboni sent his preliminary findings to the court, charging Father Pier Gaetano Feletti, arrested on January 2, and Colonel Luigi De Dominicis, who had fled to the dominions of the Holy See, with the “violent separation of the boy Edgardo Mortara from his own Jewish family.” The Magistrate sought to show that the order to seize the boy was illegal according to the law in effect at the time, on two grounds: First, Father Feletti had given no good evidence that he was acting on behalf of the properly constituted authorities in Rome, that is, the Holy Office. Second, he had in any case provided no evidence that he had adequately investigated Anna
Morisi’s claim that she had baptized the boy, and there was a great deal of evidence that cast doubt on her story.
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There was just one loose end that Carboni wanted to tie up. Father Feletti had claimed that the Pope himself had been involved in the decision to take Edgardo, and knew that the boy was happy to have been taken from his family and delivered to the Church. As evidence, he had argued that the Pope had invited Momolo and Marianna to come to Rome to see for themselves, arranging free passage for them. Carboni wrote to the stagecoach office in Bologna, asking them to review their records to see if any such arrangements had ever been made. On March 17, the answered had arrived. They had checked through all their records for the period July 1 to December 31, 1858. No evidence of a request from Rome for a free trip for the Mortaras was found.
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On March 20, Carboni’s assistant was sent to see the prisoner:

I went to the Political Prisons and passed on to the secret room used by Father Gaetano Feletti. I advised him that the trial had now been opened … and thus he needed to name a Defender. He refused to do so, saying he was placing his defense entirely in the hands of God and the most Holy Blessed Virgin, because they know he is innocent. He continued to persist in this position, so I informed him that a defense attorney would be appointed for him by the Court.

Six days later, the judge presiding over the trial appointed Francesco Jussi to defend the friar.
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Jussi was a well-known figure in Bologna legal and social circles. More than a decade earlier, he had been satirized by an amateur poet as a man who was “rich, haughty, and ignorant,” a verse read to much hilarity in a room full of the city’s elite—Jussi, no doubt, included.
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In appointing Jussi to defend the former inquisitor, the judge signaled the importance of the case and his desire for a vigorous defense. Indeed, the published version of Jussi’s closing argument would soon be circulated among Church defenders throughout Europe. For the proud Jussi, this was the case of a lifetime.

Although for the previous six years, Jussi had taken court-appointed assignments on behalf of criminal defendants, this was the first time he had a client who refused to speak to him. More commonly, the men he defended (we have no record of any female defendants) were impoverished peasants. Indeed, just a few months before Father Feletti ordered Edgardo seized, Jussi defended a sharecropper who had murdered his eight-months-pregnant wife with an ax.
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Jussi had little time to prepare for the former inquisitor’s trial. On
April 10, 1860, two weeks after the judge appointed him, he learned that the final hearing was scheduled for Monday morning, April 16. Three others were notified of the trial date that same day—the defendant, Father Feletti, and the two injured parties, Momolo and Marianna Mortara. None of the three attended the trial. In the Mortaras’ case, the notice was delivered to them in their Turin home only two days beforehand, and Marianna had to sign for her husband, who was away from home. It would have been practically impossible for them to attend, even if they wanted to do so, and there is no sign that they did.

The Inquisitor’s case was different. He was ordered to appear to respond to the charge of “violent separation of the child Edgardo Mortara from his family.” Later that day, Jussi submitted a plea on Father Feletti’s behalf asking that the friar be released from the obligation of appearing in court, for he wanted “to renounce this benefit that the law gives him.” Bologna’s exinquisitor, in short, would not appear in court for his own trial, for to do so would be to recognize the right of the new state to sit in judgment over him.
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The court consented and, on the morning of April 16, when the six-judge panel, headed by Judge Calcedonio Ferrari, called the session to order, Father Feletti remained in his cell.

Neither the prosecution nor the defense had any witnesses to call. The prosecution had already furnished the court with a copy of all the testimony that Curletti and Carboni had gathered. The only prosecution witnesses who hadn’t testified were those, such as Marshal Lucidi, who had fled to the lands still under pontifical control. Jussi faced a different situation, a rather ticklish one. He was representing a man who, on principle, did not want to defend himself. What particularly tied the lawyer’s hands was that many of the central facts to be established involved just those questions that, from the Inquisitor’s point of view, should not be revealed to the court. Not only could he not call Anna Morisi to the stand to discuss her interrogation at San Domenico, but how could he call other central witnesses, such as Cesare Lepori and Regina Bussolari, without raising the issue of whom the Inquisitor had interviewed and whom he hadn’t? And how could he even think of calling the witnesses who could refute the charge that his client had acted without orders from higher authorities? None of them would agree to testify in this court, nor would Father Feletti or his defenders appreciate efforts by Jussi to try to summon them. In short, with less than three weeks to prepare his case, and without the benefit of discussing it with Father Feletti or cross-examining the witnesses interviewed by the prosecution, Jussi would have to rely on his considerable oratorical powers alone, leaving everything to his closing argument. He had only one advantage: the prosecution would go first. Jussi would have the last word.

Following standard court procedure, a special prosecutor, the
procuratore fiscale,
and not the investigating magistrate, presented the prosecution’s case to the court. Radamisto Valentini had been appointed to be the prosecutor attached to Bologna’s trial court in January. This was his first big case.

To get a conviction, the prosecutor realized, he would have to prove that the Inquisitor broke the laws in effect at the time Edgardo was taken. To accuse him of acting contrary to the new criminal code—in which the role of the Inquisitor was not recognized—conflicted not only with international norms but with the new government’s desire to pacify the Italian population and win the favor of foreign governments.