The first official information of this had been received by means of a letter from the President of the Council of the Israelite community of Turin, addressed to Sir Moses as President of the Board of Deputies. This letter was accompanied by a memorial from twenty-one Sardinian congregations, adverting briefly to the facts of this distressing case, detailing the measures they had adopted in reference thereto, and earnestly appealing to the Board of Deputies for its immediate co-operation.
The full details of the case are given in a memorial addressed to the Pontifical Government on behalf of the Mortara family, of which I give a short abstract.
"On the 24th of June 1858, in Bologna, the boy Edgar Mortara, under seven years of age, was snatched away from his Jewish parents under pretext of having been secretly baptised. The distressed father repeatedly but vainly applied to the authorities for an explanation of the circumstances which had led to the abduction of his son. It was only after several weeks that he was able in an indirect way to learn that Anna Morisi, a former servant in his house, had, many months previously, told another servant girl that, at the instigation of a certain Lepori, a druggist, she had baptised the child Edgar when no one was present, and when he was about one year old and dangerously ill. It was further said that this took place on an occasion when another of Mortara's sons was dying, and Morisi was urged by the other girl to baptise him also, which, however, she declined to do."
Mortara on these statements made the following observations:--
"_1st._ That it is true that the child Edgar, when a little more than one year old, was taken ill, but only of a slight ailment very common among children, and the child's state could not have created any serious apprehensions in the mind of any one, therefore the condition did not exist on which it is permitted to baptise the children of infidels _invitis parentibus_, viz., the certainty of an inevitable death. And, indeed, it would be in contradiction to the maxims of the Church on paternal authority to suppose such a thing authorised before the approach of death, which removes a child from the authority of his parents. Supposing for one moment that the confidence entertained by the parents in the recovery of their child were not shared by the over-zealous servant, it could not be supposed or maintained that on the erroneous supposition of a person the law could be diverted from its true meaning and from the established rules for its application.
