9
Reports of this kind, flooding out of Rome and reproduced by the Catholic press throughout Europe, came in response to the mounting movement being organized to win Edgardo’s release. Had the boy really been so transformed? Momolo and Marianna angrily denounced the Catholic accounts as infamous lies, but some of their allies, including Scazzocchio, who had sat in on a few of the disputed meetings that Momolo had with Edgardo, were not so sure where the boy’s loyalties now lay.
From the perspective of the liberals of Europe, the Church story had a fatal weakness: it was, on its face, absurd. A booklet published in Brussels in 1859, denouncing the Church for its kidnapping of Edgardo, first offers an account of what it says really happened, before then taking aim at the version of events that had been published in a Belgian Catholic newspaper:
“His father follows him to Rome, where he is permitted to see his child, who does not want to be separated from him any longer. The boy is afraid; he wants to see his mother and his sisters. He says that he will travel all through the night, if necessary, to see them. He wants to leave, but Church canons are against him.” The Church then mounts its counterattack. “The comedy is launched, aimed at stifling the scandal: The child is said to feel an irresistible calling. He cries; no longer is he in his father’s arms, no longer is he asking for his mother, but rather at the foot of a cross, calling for the sacred Virgin. He wants to be baptized again. He wants to baptize all the Jews. He will be a missionary so that he can convert them. All this at age six and a half!”
Which side was lying and which telling the truth was self-evident:
Between the miracle of a six-year-old apostle who wants to convert the Jews and the cry of a child who keeps asking for his mother and his little sisters, we don’t hesitate for a moment. The nature of the truth is too obvious when set alongside the clear signs of deceit. When nature appears, when the heart speaks (and only the heart can speak at that age), the conviction is irresistible. There is not a person who loves their children, not a father, nor a mother, nor a brother, nor sister, who believes the account given in L’Indépendance. 10
Defenders of the Church appeared not to realize that, to many, their account sounded too good to be true. The single most influential Church article on the taking of Edgardo, which appeared in Civiltà Cattolica in November 1858 and was subsequently excerpted in Catholic papers throughout Europe, recounted the miraculous transformation that came over the boy as soon as he set foot in the House of the Catechumens. The effects of the baptismal sacrament erupted in the child:
“He is mentally sharper and more perceptive than is usually to be found in a boy who is barely seven.” On entering the Catechumens, “he showed a marvelous happiness. He declared that he did not want to be anything other than what he was, that is, a member of Christendom.… As for his attitude toward his parents, the change that came over him was practically instantaneous.” He implored the Rector not to let his parents take him away: “He begged to be raised in a Christian home, to avoid those seductions and perhaps even the violence that, under the paternal roof, would most likely have met him.”
The Civiltà Cattolica account sketched a central theme in the Catholic narrative: Edgardo had a new father—“I am baptized,” he said, “I am baptized and my father is the Pope.” 11 He had a new mother, the sacred Virgin Mary, and a new family, the “grande famiglia cattolica.”
One day, according to yet another Catholic version of Edgardo’s early encounters with his father at the Catechumens, “his father reminded him of the fourth of the Ten Commandments, that he should obey his parents and return home. ‘I will do,’ he responded, ‘just exactly what the Holy Father says. Here he is,’ and he points to the
Reports of this kind, flooding out of Rome and reproduced by the Catholic press throughout Europe, came in response to the mounting movement being organized to win Edgardo’s release. Had the boy really been so transformed? Momolo and Marianna angrily denounced the Catholic accounts as infamous lies, but some of their allies, including Scazzocchio, who had sat in on a few of the disputed meetings that Momolo had with Edgardo, were not so sure where the boy’s loyalties now lay.
From the perspective of the liberals of Europe, the Church story had a fatal weakness: it was, on its face, absurd. A booklet published in Brussels in 1859, denouncing the Church for its kidnapping of Edgardo, first offers an account of what it says really happened, before then taking aim at the version of events that had been published in a Belgian Catholic newspaper:
“His father follows him to Rome, where he is permitted to see his child, who does not want to be separated from him any longer. The boy is afraid; he wants to see his mother and his sisters. He says that he will travel all through the night, if necessary, to see them. He wants to leave, but Church canons are against him.” The Church then mounts its counterattack. “The comedy is launched, aimed at stifling the scandal: The child is said to feel an irresistible calling. He cries; no longer is he in his father’s arms, no longer is he asking for his mother, but rather at the foot of a cross, calling for the sacred Virgin. He wants to be baptized again. He wants to baptize all the Jews. He will be a missionary so that he can convert them. All this at age six and a half!”
Which side was lying and which telling the truth was self-evident:
Between the miracle of a six-year-old apostle who wants to convert the Jews and the cry of a child who keeps asking for his mother and his little sisters, we don’t hesitate for a moment. The nature of the truth is too obvious when set alongside the clear signs of deceit. When nature appears, when the heart speaks (and only the heart can speak at that age), the conviction is irresistible. There is not a person who loves their children, not a father, nor a mother, nor a brother, nor sister, who believes the account given in L’Indépendance. 10
Defenders of the Church appeared not to realize that, to many, their account sounded too good to be true. The single most influential Church article on the taking of Edgardo, which appeared in Civiltà Cattolica in November 1858 and was subsequently excerpted in Catholic papers throughout Europe, recounted the miraculous transformation that came over the boy as soon as he set foot in the House of the Catechumens. The effects of the baptismal sacrament erupted in the child:
“He is mentally sharper and more perceptive than is usually to be found in a boy who is barely seven.” On entering the Catechumens, “he showed a marvelous happiness. He declared that he did not want to be anything other than what he was, that is, a member of Christendom.… As for his attitude toward his parents, the change that came over him was practically instantaneous.” He implored the Rector not to let his parents take him away: “He begged to be raised in a Christian home, to avoid those seductions and perhaps even the violence that, under the paternal roof, would most likely have met him.”
The Civiltà Cattolica account sketched a central theme in the Catholic narrative: Edgardo had a new father—“I am baptized,” he said, “I am baptized and my father is the Pope.” 11 He had a new mother, the sacred Virgin Mary, and a new family, the “grande famiglia cattolica.”
One day, according to yet another Catholic version of Edgardo’s early encounters with his father at the Catechumens, “his father reminded him of the fourth of the Ten Commandments, that he should obey his parents and return home. ‘I will do,’ he responded, ‘just exactly what the Holy Father says. Here he is,’ and he points to the
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