Ecclesiastical
Matters
Some time ago a
painting by the Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was put up for auction at
Sotheby’s. Listed under the Judaica sub-section, the painting titled “The
kidnapping of Edgardo
Mortara “was sold for 407,000 USD.
The catalogue
note included in the sales page provides hitherto little-known details of the
work and its subject.
“The Kidnapping
of Edgardo Mortara is one of Moritz Daniel Oppenheim’s
most important paintings.
The Mortara case was an Italian cause
célèbre that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in
the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a
six-year-old boy named Edgardo Mortara from his Jewish family
in Bologna, on the basis of a former housemaid’s testimony that she had administered an emergency baptism to
the boy when he fell ill as an infant. Mortara grew up as a Catholic under the
protection of Pope Pius IX, who refused his parents' desperate pleas for
his return, and eventually became a priest. The domestic and international
outrage against the pontifical state's actions may have contributed to its
downfall amid the unification of Italy.
In late 1857, Bologna's inquisitor Father Pier Feletti
heard that Anna Morisi, who had worked in the Mortara house for six years, had
secretly baptised Edgardo when she thought he was about to die.
The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal
Inquisition held the view that this action irrevocably made the child a
Catholic and, because the Papal States forbade the raising of Christians by members
of other faiths, it ordered that he be taken from his family and brought up by
the Church. Police came to the home of Salomone and
Marianna Mortara, late on 23rd of June 1858 and kidnapped Edgardo the following evening.
The work was painted in 1862, four years after the kidnapping. Oppenheim’s painting is an example of the world-wide attention the topic gained.
At this juncture I want to add an ironic
margin note: “Salomone Mortara was a successful
Jewish tailor from Bologna, whose clientele included the local police. Ten
policemen wearing uniforms produced by the Mortaras knocked on their door on
the evening of June 23, 1858 and forcibly removed Edgardo the following day”.
Back to the main text and an opinion voiced
by one Catholic church historian:
“This was an act of arrogance on the part of one of the most
backwards nations in the West. The abduction of the Italian-Jewish
boy from Bologna did much more to foment anti-religious Catholic sentiment than
the awkward public blunders of dozens of bishops and priests. In other words,
the free world hated the Church more than it pitied the Mortaras.”
Despite the strenuous efforts of the Edgardo’s parents, who worked tirelessly to rally support from Jewish communities and from prominent
European leaders; despite protests from the Rothschild family and the intervention
of Sir Moses Montefiore himself; despite the disapproval of the French Emperor Napoleon III, the boy was never returned to his family.
“In 1858 the Papal States ran the length
of the Italian peninsula, but 12 years after the Mortara kidnapping, Papal
authority in the political realm had largely been swept aside and a unified
Italy emerged in 1870 under Victor Emmanuel. The global indignation over the
Mortara kidnapping, which was widely seen as an affront to the ‘natural
rights’ of parents, fed
into the rising opposition to Papal rule: “A case can be made that Anna Morisi….
dirt poor and illiterate, made a
greater contribution to Italian unification than many of the heroes whose statues preside over Italian town
piazzas today.” (David I. Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, New
York, 1997.
Now regarding
the painting:
“By the time of the major exhibition
celebrating the 100th anniversary of Oppenheim’s birth at the
Frankfurter Kunstverein in 1900, the painting had disappeared, and was represented only by a
photograph.” …” After
more than 100 years, the re-appearance of this painting is an extraordinary
discovery which has been welcomed by Oppenheim scholars everywhere.” One art critic
commented.
The life of Edgardo Mortara after his
abduction is especially interesting. With
the Pope as a substitute father, Mortara trained for the priesthood in Rome
until the Kingdom of Italy captured the city in 1870. He left the country and was ordained in France three years later at the age of 21.
Mortara spent most of his life outside Italy and died in a Belgian monastery in 1940, aged 88, shortly before the Nazi occupation.
It has been widely claimed that Mortara
case led to the founding of Alliance Israelite Universelle providing support and educational facilities for Jews in many
countries, especially in the Levant and the Maghreb.
Let’s move fast forward to the twentieth century when a like
incident occurred:
A piece posted
by columnist Rebecca Benhamou in The Times of Israel dated 27 May 2013 is particularly enlightening: “A French historian examines a 1946 directive forbidding Catholic
authorities from handing over baptised Jewish children to their families after
the Holocaust
Reopening a scandal that broke in 2004, with the publication of
a new French book
“L’Eglise de France et les enfants juifs” (“The French Church and Jewish
Children”) is a 10-year investigation into one of the most controversial
post-war Catholic Church policies.
The book opens with an October 23, 1946, directive from the
French Apostolic Nunciature that author Catherine Poujol found in the Church
Archives at
Issy-les-Moulineaux in 2004,( a commune in the southwestern area of Paris.)
Leaked to the Italian daily newspaper Corriere
Della Sera without her permission on December 28, 2004, the document, written in French and ‘approved by the Holy Father’ — forbids Catholic authorities from
allowing Jewish children who had been sheltered by Catholics and baptised to be
returned to their families and communities.
“For Jews today, children or
grandchildren of Holocaust survivors,
the letter from the Nunciature is written evidence of what was once feared,”
Poujol writes. “We knew that after the war, Jewish organisations did everything in their power to obtain
a letter from the pope, a memorandum asking institutions looking after hidden
Jewish children to hand them over.
“Today, we have the evidence that a
contrary order came from the Vatican, and affected some of these children,” she
adds.
“For a historian, it is very tempting to
talk to the press. The formal Church directive outlining how to deal with
requests from Jewish organisations looking for hidden children throughout
Europe fails to mention the atrocities of the Holocaust.
“Children who have been baptised must
not be entrusted to institutions that would not be in a position to guarantee
their Christian upbringing,” the document says. “For children who no longer
have their parents, given the fact that the Church is responsible for
them, it is not acceptable for them to be abandoned by the Church or entrusted
to any persons who have no rights over them, at least until they are in a
position to choose themselves.”
Archbishop of Lyon Monsignor Gerlier —
credited with rescuing 120 Jewish children from deportation in Vénissieux —
received the letter on April 30, 1947, along with another document, entitled
“Note from the Abbot Blanc.”
Explaining the opinion of a theologist
consulted by the Vatican envoy in France, Angelo Rocalli, the document states:
“Baptism is what makes a Christian, hence it ‘cancels the Jew,’ which allowed
the Church to protect so many endangered Israelites.”
To this day, there are no reliable
figures on how many French Jewish children were hidden and saved by Catholics,
or directly affected by this Church directive.
For almost a decade, Poujol refused to
talk to the press about her discovery. Now, she explains the reasons behind her
silence.
“I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire
without properly investigating the subject — and this was a very complex,
lengthy process,” she told The Times of Israel.
“When the media published the directive,
they had no evidence whatsoever of its origin and its actual impact on the Church, especially when you discover something
big. But had I talked, I would have lost my credibility and the Church’s
trust.”
Poujol admits, however, that without the
2004 scandal, the French Church would probably not have granted her access to
its private archives.
“The Church felt cornered, and at first
adopted an inward-looking stance. But soon it realised that denying the access
to these post-war documents would fuel the scandal even more.”
After examining countless sources and
traveling throughout Europe, the US and Israel, Poujol came to the conclusion
that even if this document clearly outlines the Church’s intention of keeping baptised
Jewish children under its custody, it doesn’t cast blame on the entire Catholic
Church.
Many priests and bishops acted
completely independently and didn’t abide by the directive,” she says.
Poujol notes that there is very little
evidence as to which members of the Church did receive the note.
“After the war, the Church was in an
unprecedented, exceptional situation — and wasn’t prepared for it,” she says.
“On the one hand, a sacrament, in this case baptism, was administered to save
individuals from a likely death. But on the other hand, Catholics truly believe
in the rescue of souls via this sacrament.”
Amid numerous, well-documented examples,
Poujol mentions the Finaly Affair, which consumed and divided France in 1953.
In 1944, two Jewish boys, Robert and
Gerald Finaly, were sent by their parents to a Catholic nursery in Grenoble.
After the parents were deported and murdered in Auschwitz, their uncle and aunt, who
were living in Israel and a second aunt who lived in New Zealand, attempted to get the children back.
In 1948, a French Catholic nurse Antoinette Brun baptised
the children without the family’s permission and formally adopted them,
omitting to tell the judge about the existence of other relatives.
The affair reached the national
spotlight when a police investigation found that several nuns of the Notre Dame
de Sion order and Basque priests had arranged and executed the kidnapping and
smuggling of the children in Spain in February 1953.
The boys were returned to their family
after a lengthy legal battle that divided the French
public opinion.
Poujol explains, “The Finaly Affair is
the most emblematic example of the Church’s ambivalent attitude. The debate
opposed on the one hand Monsignor
Gerlier, who did everything he could not to hand over the children, and on the
other hand, Monsignor Caillot, archbishop of Grenoble and fervent supporter of
the Vichy government, who lobbied actively to return the boys to their family.”
French public opinion was divided into two opposing
camps, clericals against anti-clericals, Zionists against anti-Zionists, and
canon law against Republican law,” she adds.
In France, 11,600 Jewish children died during World
War II, but another 72,400 survived.
“There are many grey areas when it comes to the role of the Catholic Church
during and after the war; we cannot jump to a clear-cut, black or white
conclusion,” says Poujol. “The very goal of my book is to show that we need to
adopt a nuanced stance.”
Dr. Robert Finaly was born in 1941 in Grenoble, France. In March
1944 his parents were deported to Auschwitz. Robert and his younger brother Gad
(Gerald) were placed in the city’s Catholic children’s home. The manager of the
institution cared for them but refused to return them to their family after the
war, instead baptising them as Christians. After a lengthy legal battle fought by the boys’ aunts — during which
they were hidden in various Catholic institutions in Italy and Spain — the boys
were returned to their families and emigrated to Israel to live with their
aunt.
I want to add a postscript noting the
struggle to return the Finaly boys to their family was conducted by private
individuals. At that time the Israeli government was loath to annoy the Vatican,
preferring to leave the matter to the family and its supporters.
I’ll hazard a personal comment here. If
anything like the Finaly case were to happen today the Mossad or one of the IDF
special forces units would be dispatched to rescue them, regardless of the
consequences.
Another case in point
which received less publicity, but nevertheless deserves no less attention,
concerns the fate of the children who survived the
Holocaust in the convents of Poland. Poland is, of course, one of the largest
Catholic countries in Europe and one in which the Church had a special stature
and exerted strong influence over its believers. I will try to include it in another post.
I want conclude by briefly referring to
another Church related incident, but this time “the shoe is on the other foot.”
Quite recently Times of Israel
journalist Jacob Magid wrote about an unprecedented project to expand a national park onto
church-owned lands and Christian holy sites in East Jerusalem.
The project has sparked
fierce opposition from
local Christian leaders.
The move would not strip
the landholders of their ownership, but it would give the government some
authority over Palestinian and church properties and religious sites, leading
church officials and rights groups to characterise the measure as a power grab
and a threat to the Christian presence in the Holy Land.
The
plan would see the borders of the Jerusalem Walls National Park extended to
include a large section of the Mount of Olives along with additional parts of
the Kidron and Ben Hinnom Valleys. It’s
scheduled to come before the Jerusalem municipality’s Local Planning and
Construction Committee for preliminary approval later
this week.
The Israel Nature and
Parks Authority (INPA), which is promoting the project, says the expansion is
designed to restore long-neglected lands and better preserve historical
landscapes, and that it will not harm the church properties incorporated into
the national park.
A visiting delegation of
Democrats from the US House of Representatives was briefed on the matter and
subsequently raised their concern regarding the project with Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett during a meeting last week.
Jacob
Magid quoted a letter written by church leaders claiming that although the plan is officially presented by the INPA, it
seems that it was put forward and is being orchestrated, advanced and promoted
by entities whose apparent sole purpose is to confiscate and nationalise one of
the holiest sites for Christianity and alter its nature,”
Under the guise of protecting green spaces, the plan
appears to serve an ideological agenda that denies the status and rights of
Christians in Jerusalem.
Clearly
the “men of the cloth” have a valid argument and the project should be overseen
by an uninvolved neutral body other than the INPA that will allay the fears of
church leaders. A body dedicated to minimal landscaping and maximum clearing of
undergrowth, weeds etc., without encroaching on church properties.
Just
the same, I’m not sorry that the shoe is on the other foot.
Have
a good weekend.
Beni 3rd
of March, 2022
