The Church and Edgardo Mortara

This delicate question can be properly understood only if we set aside current polemics about racism and anti-Semitism. In a culture where religion and civil status were not separated, such as in the case of Edgardo Mortara, even though his baptism was contrary to the desires of his parents (and thus contrary to Christian law also), the fact that he was baptized made him a Christian, and thus no longer a member, civilly, of the Jewish community.

We can easily imagine nowadays the sad case wherein a child born on US soil and thus a citizen of the US is allowed to stay here, while the child’s father and mother are deported because they are not legally in the US. This is a cruel state of affairs, but we can see how it might happen, based on the norms that govern citizenship and residency. Thus, the case of Mortara may seem cruel or hypocritical, since it involves a holy thing like baptism, but from the emotional point of view we should examine it like contemporary cases of immigration.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy has some real parallels with the Mortara case. Let’s keep this in mind and not demonize the popes of the past for maintaining the perspective of their own time and place.