Spiritualis Uterus: The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Rights

Abstract

Spiritualis Uterus:The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Rights Matthew A. Tapie1 On June 23, 1858, Pope Pius IX ordered police of the Papal States to remove a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his home, in Bologna. Edgardo had been secretly baptized by his Christian housekeeper after allegedly falling ill as an infant. Since the law of the Papal States required that a person baptized must be raised Catholic, Inquisition authorities forcibly removed Edgardo from his parents' home and transported him to Rome in order that he receive a Christian upbringing.2 'Worldwide protests followed. Thousands of people—from American protesters to the French emperor Napoleon III—demanded the child's return.'3 Along with assurances that the boy would be well taken care of, Pius IX insisted, Non possumus. Controversy over the Mortara affair in the United States emerged once more, in January 2018, with the publication of Dominican theologian Romanus Cessario's essay defending Pius IX's decision.4 In order to forestall anti-Catholic sentiment in reaction to an upcoming film based on David Kertzer's 1997 book on the Mortara case, Cessario argues that the separation of Edgardo from his Jewish parents is what the current Code of Canon Law, and Thomas Aquinas's theology of baptism, [End Page 289] required.5 If one accepts the Catholic Church's teaching on the efficacy of baptism, Pius IX's decision is not only just, it is an act of piety, and strength. In Cessario's view, one must look beyond the human pathos of the Mortara case to see that what was required by the law of the Church, and the Papal States, concerned the deeper realities of the power and permanence of baptism, and the logical, political consequences of receiving this sacrament. Cessario's argument is as follows:6 1. An infant in danger of death can be baptized licitly even against the will of non-Catholic parents. Cessario cites the 1983 Codex iuris canonici 868, and explains that § 2 affirms that 'an infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of their parents.' 2. Baptism seals a person with an indelible spiritual mark that configures a person to Christ. 3. The law of the Church and the civil law of the Papal States require that legitimately baptized children receive a Catholic education (expressed today in the Codex iuris canonici 868 § 2). 4. Therefore, Pius IX was right to relocate Edgardo from his family and raise him Catholic. Cessario appeals to Aquinas's theology of baptism in the second premise of his argument but does not cite to a text. He is likely referring to Aquinas's discussion of baptism in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae. For Cessario, if one conceives of the Mortara case as a kidnapping, one has fallen victim to modern indifference to theological claims, and anti-Catholic prejudice.7 Outraged scholars and writers criticized Cessario's essay. Some charged that the essay damaged Catholic-Jewish relations.8 Others criticized theological aspects of Cessario's argument, and [End Page 290] a few of these authors cited Aquinas's teaching against forced baptism of Jewish children.9 Cessario and his critics appeal to Aquinas's teaching to argue for and against Pius IX's decision to remove Edgardo Mortara. However, this contemporary debate has overlooked the fact that the question of Aquinas's teaching on forced baptism was at the center of a rather extensive theological exchange between the Mortara family, and the Vatican's papal counsel, in 1858. Soon after Edgardo was abducted, the Mortara family, with the assistance of the Jewish community in Rome, submitted a formal document (referred to as Pro-memoria and Syllabus) that argued that the child must be returned because the Church, according to Aquinas, prohibits baptizing children of unbelievers without the consent of their parents. The Mortara family's document appealed to the same teachings in Aquinas cited by critics of Cessario. Yet the Vatican's refutation also appealed to Aquinas's teaching in order to defend the decision to separate...