Fr. Pio Maria Edgardo Mortara, O.S.B. Lat. (1851–1940)
Born into a Jewish family in Bologna, secretly baptized in infancy, taken from his parents by Papal authority in 1858, and raised as a ward of Pope Pius IX, Edgardo Mortara became a Catholic priest of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. He spent decades as a missionary preacher throughout Europe, including explicitly to Jewish communities in cities such as Munich, Mainz, and Breslau. He died in Liège, Belgium, on March 11, 1940.
His writings include a Spanish-language memoir composed in 1888 (El Niño Mortara y Pío Nono, archived at the Canons Regular, Rome), a letter published in the prominent French Catholic newspaper L’Univers on May 19, 1898 (his most extensive published theological statement), extensive personal correspondence, and his formal deposition in the beatification process of Pius IX (given circa 1912, published in the Positio super Introductione Causae, 1954).
Note on the memoir (1888): The memoir exists in a Spanish typescript prepared by Fr. Juan Oleaga from the handwritten original. When an Italian translation was published by Mondadori in 2005 and later in English by Ignatius Press (2017), Brown University historian David Kertzer identified significant alterations, including the removal of Mortara’s most explicit theological statements on Judaism. Quotations below from the memoir are drawn from Kertzer’s documented comparison with the original Spanish archived text, as reported by him and confirmed by the Associated Press (April 2018).
I. On the Legitimacy of the Anti-Jewish Struggle as a Religious and Moral Question
From his letter to L’Univers, May 15, 1898:
“By supposing speculatively that antisemitism is only the struggle between Christianity with its rights and its legitimate preponderance and Judaism stripped of its beliefs, stripped of the morality founded on primitive revelation, this struggle is reasonable and even legitimate.”
— Letter to L’Univers, Paris, May 15, 1898. Original source: l’Univers, Thursday, May 19, 1898 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7098495/f1.item.zoom). English translation published by The Journal of American Reform, July 20, 2025: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
II. On the Corruption of Modern Judaism — The Talmud and Kabbalah
From the same 1898 letter, describing what he observed in twenty-five years of missionary work:
“It is no longer a question of what Jesus is, be it his denomination, nor the divinity of Jesus Christ, and, consequently, the supernatural in the gospel and Catholic morality. It is lost in the Talmud and in the Kabbalah, letting itself go to transactions with rationalist philosophy, or else finishing by engulfing itself in agnosticism. This is the foundation of its symbol. For twenty-five years, I have traveled as a missionary in both worlds, and everywhere I have observed these characteristic traits of modern Judaism.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
III. On Judaism as a “False and Impious Morality”
From the same letter, on the necessity of the struggle against Judaism:
“For us, Catholics, there is a great danger that must be fought. And, as principles incarnate themselves in men, it is natural that in fact one fights Jews as partisans of a false and impious morality.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
IV. On Supersessionism — The Rejection of the Jews and the Transfer of the Covenant
From the same letter, drawing on St. Paul and scripture:
“Since Judaism rejected the envoy of God, it was rejected in its turn; and Esau had to cede his right of primogeniture to Jacob, his younger brother. Faithful to the true Messiah, the people of Israel would have resumed, with Christian thought and morality, the hegemony of peoples. Separated from Jesus-Christ, it was reproved, rejected; and the hegemony passed to the Gentiles, not only to make the Christian ideal triumph. Perhaps it is not even contrary to exegesis to interpret in this sense the cry of just anger that Saint Paul uttered while shaking the dust from his sandals: ‘Behold, we turn to the Gentiles.'”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
V. On the Jews as Permanent Witnesses to Their Own Condemnation
From the same letter:
“This struggle will thus continue, all the more so since until the end of ages the Jew will be there, hardened like the core of ripe fruit, permanent witness to the realization of the prophecies announced in advance from Moses, until the Apocalypse, his hardening and his downfall.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
VI. On the Jews‘ Adoration of the Golden Calf — Financial Domination
From the same letter, on Jewish aspirations to worldly hegemony through money:
“The rationalist Jew has thrown himself upon the clod of earth. He has adored the golden calf; he has made banking and money his everyday Messiah. It is through this that he aspires to hegemony, for everything obeys money. It is also, after all, on this terrain that he is disputed.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
VII. On the Israelites as Persecutors of the Pope and Aggressors in 1858
From the same letter:
“I will recall first that in 1858 the Israelites were persecutors of the Pope and of Catholics. It was the Israelite community of Alexandria which, the first, threw down the gauntlet. It engaged all the other communities to protest against the act of Pius IX. Thus were determined subsequently the official intervention of governments, of diplomacy and of the press, the general outcry, the great uprising of shields.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
VIII. On His Baptism Having Neutralized “Hereditary Semitism”
From the same letter, explaining his claim to impartiality on the Jewish question:
“With regard to the Jewish question and to antisemitism, I recognize no competence, if it is not that which gives me racial solidarity and a certain impartiality. I attribute this impartiality to the fact that my baptism having occurred only a few months after my birth, it neutralized the influence of hereditary Semitism.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
IX. On There Being No Rights for Parents Against Supernatural Law
From the same letter, providing his theological argument that Pius IX was wholly justified:
“Man has no absolute right in relation to God. He only has duties. One does not have rights for the end but for the means, in view of attaining the end… parents have a duty even more than a right, to raise or to have their children raised in the one true religion: Catholic, Apostolic, Roman. If the contrary happens, and it will certainly happen, it is not by virtue of a right, but because one must respect the personal freedom of the parents, which God Himself respected.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
X. On There Being No Prescription in Favor of a False Religion
From the same letter, continuing the same argument:
“My baptism emerged from the shadow that surrounded it, exactly at the hour when the first gleams of natural reason began to shine… God does not act by himself alone. Pius IX, his vicar, declared that in this case natural right was suspended (a right which, in the concrete state, was only relative, for, as we have said, there is no prescription in favor of a false religion) and he declared himself Father of my regenerated soul, obliged to provide for my spiritual education.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XI. On His Inevitable Apostasy Had the Church Not Intervened
From the same letter:
“In fact, in the case where the Pope would not have intervened, I would have been a degraded being, an apostate. I would have disowned Him whose precious blood had touched me. There would have been only Christian education that could have prevented this.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XII. On the Conversion of the Jews as the Proper Goal
From the same letter, on the correct form of the struggle against Judaism:
“Proselytism. Let us work for the conversion of Jews, not so much through polemics as by showing them the beauty of the Catholic religion… Here in Paris, at Notre-Dame de Sion, of which I am the last of the devoted children, there are angels of prayer, who intercede permanently for the conversion of our brothers, the Jews. May it please God that this beautiful antisemitic work have more echo and diffusion.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XIII. On His Grief Over Jewish Blindness — After St. Paul
From the closing of the same letter:
“I make mine the admirable words of the apostle of the Gentiles: There is continual sorrow in my heart, I groan over the blindness of my dear brothers the Israelites. Christian peoples do not forget that it is the Jewish people who transmitted to you the promises of heritage and gave you Jesus the Blessed of nations and centuries. Remember this; and while fighting for your rights do not stop loving your brothers.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XIV. On Spiritual Fatherhood as Superior to Natural Fatherhood
From the same letter, on the theological basis for his removal from his parents:
“Born into the arms of the Church, my Mother, I was by that fact devolved to the spiritual Father of souls, to the representative of God, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Pope, in short, to whom I can say with David: In te projectus sum ex utero (I was cast upon you from the womb). The Pope had to think about my Christian education. As a result of this duty, he had the right to choose the means.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XV. On Pius IX’s Own Words — Endorsed and Transmitted by Mortara
From the same letter, quoting and explicitly endorsing Pius IX’s words to him in person:
“See, this child. Well, great and small wanted to take his soul from me, but I replied: — I cannot, I must not, I do not want to. — I demanded for the child a Christian education; for I am the father of his regenerated soul. If it were necessary, I would do again what I did then.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XVI. On Louis Veuillot and the Defense of His Baptism Against the Masonic Press
From the closing of the same letter:
“I do not believe I am exaggerating in saying that what I owe to Pius IX, from the point of view of my supernatural rehabilitation, I owe to Louis Veuillot from the point of view of the defense of the rights of my baptism. He affirmed these rights, energetically and valiantly as always, among the furious clamors of the free-thinking and masonic press.”
— Letter to L’Univers, 1898. The Journal of American Reform: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
XVII. On the Falsehood and Absurdity of the Jewish Religion
From his 1888 memoir (El Niño Mortara y Pío Nono) — a passage suppressed in the Messori/Ignatius Press translation:
“The Mortaras hold to the Jewish religion, which is false, contradictory, absurd, condemned by history, and condemned to be labeled ‘ridiculous,’ as it is by most men.”
— Memoir (1888), original Spanish text; translated and cited by David Kertzer, “The Doctored Memoir of Edgardo Mortara,” Primo Levi Center, April 17, 2018 (https://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/the-doctored-memoir-of-edgardo-mortara/); confirmed by the Associated Press, April 20, 2018 (https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/04/memoir-of-Jewish-boy-taken-from-home-by-pius-ix-altered-in-translation).
XVIII. On His Personal Horror of the Jews
From the same memoir, describing walking with fellow seminarians through the Jewish ghetto of Rome — also suppressed in Messori’s translation:
“[He had] always professed an inexpressible horror toward the Jews.”
— Memoir (1888), original Spanish text; cited by David Kertzer and confirmed by the Associated Press, April 20, 2018.
XIX. On the Immense Misfortune of Being and Remaining Jewish
Reported by the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1858, quoting what young Edgardo expressed upon entering the House of Catechumens:
“[He had] the singular grace that he had received through Baptism and, by contrast, the immense misfortune for his parents of being and wanting to remain Jews.”
— La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1858; cited by David Kertzer, “The Doctored Memoir of Edgardo Mortara,” Primo Levi Center, 2018: https://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/the-doctored-memoir-of-edgardo-mortara/
XX. On Divine Providence Having Led Him to the True Family of Christ
From the memoir, as cited in the National Catholic Register:
“When I was adopted by Pius IX, the whole world shouted that I was a victim, a martyr of the Jesuits. But in spite of all this, I, most grateful to Divine Providence, which had led me to the true Family of Christ, was living happily at Saint Peter in Chains, and in my humble person the law of the Church was in effect, despite Emperor Napoleon III, Cavour, and some other great men of this earth. What is left of all that? Only the heroic ‘non possumus’ (‘we cannot’) of the great Pope of the Immaculate Conception.”
— Memoir (1888); cited in Kathy Schiffer, “Kidnapped by the Vatican?” National Catholic Register: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/kschiffer/kidnapped-by-the-vatican
XXI. On Supernatural Grace as the Only Explanation for His Refusal to Return to His Family
From his formal beatification testimony for Pius IX (§1656), given circa 1912:
“Despite all this, I never showed the slightest desire to return to my family, a fact which I do not understand myself, except by looking at the power of supernatural grace.”
— Beatification Testimony, §1656; published in the Positio super Introductione Causae (Italian, 1954); translated by ZENIT News Agency, September 20, 2000. EWTN: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/levimortaras-testimony-for-beatification-of-pius-ix-2904
XXII. On Jewish Opposition to the Papacy as the Work of the Church’s Enemies
From the same beatification testimony (§1659):
“The Jewish community of Alessandria (Piedmont) appealed to all the Synagogues of the world and organized a real campaign against the Pope and the Roman Church, consulting the political powers and asking them to intervene and protest diplomatically. In fact, protests were sent; the violent and passionate controversy that united all the enemies of the Papacy and the Roman Church lasted six months.”
— Beatification Testimony, §1659. EWTN: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/levimortaras-testimony-for-beatification-of-pius-ix-2904
XXIII. On His Desire for the Beatification and Canonization of Pius IX
From his written testimony, 1912:
“I am firmly convinced, not only by the deposition I have given, but by the entire life of my august protector and father, that the Servant of God Pius IX is a saint. I have the almost instinctive conviction that one day he will be raised to the glory of the altars. For me it will be an intimate joy for my entire life and a great comfort in the hour of my death to have cooperated to the limits of my strength toward the success of this cause. I pray to God, by the intercession of his Servant, to have mercy on me and forgive my sins, and make me rejoice in his presence in Paradise.”
— Written testimony for beatification of Pius IX, 1912; cited in Pope Pius IX and Judaism, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_IX_and_Judaism
XXIV. On His Parents’ Violation of Canon Law and Its Consequences
From a letter written in 1897 to Isaac Feibel, held at the American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati, Ohio), reference RD-540:
“I was born in Bologna Italy, where there existed a law forbidding the Employment of Christian servants by none of the Jewish faith. This law of the state my parents violated and had naturally to suffer the consequence. It was not against my wish that I left my home knowing full well that a refusal to do so would be a resistance to lawful authority.”
— Letter to Isaac Feibel, 1897. American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. RD-540. https://www.americanJewisharchives.org/snapshots/the-kidnapping-of-edgardo-levi-mortara/
XXV. On the Desire for His Mother to Embrace the Catholic Faith
From a letter published in the French newspaper Le Temps:
“I have always ardently desired that my mother embrace the Catholic faith, and I tried many times to get her to do so. However, that never happened.”
— Letter to Le Temps; cited in the Mortara case article, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case
Sources
- Fr. Edgardo Mortara, Letter to L’Univers, Paris, May 15, 1898. Published in l’Univers, Thursday, May 19, 1898. Original scan via Gallica / Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7098495/f1.item.zoom — English translation by The Journal of American Reform, July 20, 2025: https://americanreform.substack.com/p/the-mortara-affair-according-to-edgardo
- Fr. Edgardo Mortara, Beatification Testimony for Pius IX (c. 1912); published in the Positio super Introductione Causae (Italian, 1954); English translation by ZENIT News Agency, September 20, 2000. Available at EWTN: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/levimortaras-testimony-for-beatification-of-pius-ix-2904
- Fr. Edgardo Mortara, Letter to Isaac Feibel (1897). American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. RD-540. https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/snapshots/the-kidnapping-of-edgardo-levi-mortara/
- Fr. Edgardo Mortara, El Niño Mortara y Pío Nono (memoir, 1888), original Spanish typescript, Canons Regular archive, Rome. Passages documented by David Kertzer, “The Doctored Memoir of Edgardo Mortara,” Primo Levi Center, April 17, 2018: https://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/the-doctored-memoir-of-edgardo-mortara/
- Associated Press, “Memoir of Jewish Boy Taken from Home by Pius IX Altered in Translation,” Crux Now, April 20, 2018: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/04/memoir-of-jewish-boy-taken-from-home-by-pius-ix-altered-in-translation
- Associated Press / Fox News, “Key Findings in Analysis of Memoir of a Jew Raised Catholic,” April 20, 2018: https://www.foxnews.com/world/key-findings-in-analysis-of-memoir-of-a-jew-raised-catholic
- La Civiltà Cattolica, November 1858. Passage cited via Kertzer (see source 4 above).
- Wikipedia, “Mortara Case”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case
- Wikipedia, “Pope Pius IX and Judaism”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_IX_and_Judaism
- Kathy Schiffer, “Kidnapped by the Vatican?” National Catholic Register: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/kschiffer/kidnapped-by-the-vatican
- Vittorio Messori / Ignatius Press, Kidnapped by the Vatican? The Unpublished Memoirs of Edgardo Mortara (English, 2017). ISBN: 9781621641988.