KIDNAPPED BY THE VATICAN? The Unpublished Memoirs of Edgardo Mortara Intro. by VITTORIO MESSORI

Description

In 1888 Fr. Edgardo Mortata wrote his autobiography so that the world would understand he had not been kidnapped by the Vatican. Here along with a thorough introduction by Vittorio Messori, his story is published for the first time in English. As an infant, Mortara was on the point of death and secretly baptized by a Catholic servant hired by his family. He recovered his health, and in the Papal States where his family lived, the law required that he, like other baptized children, receive a Christian education. After several failed attempts to persuade his parents to enroll him in a local Catholic school, in 1858 Pope Pius IX had the boy taken from his family and sent to a Catholic boarding school in Rome. There the child grew in Faith and eventually became a priest. The Mortara Case reverberated around the world. Pius IX was pressured to reverse his decision and his refusal to do so was of the reasons to dissolve the Papal States in 1870. Paper.