Pier Gaetano Feletti

Pier Gaetano Feletti (* 1797 in Comacchio ; † 1881 in Rome ) was a Dominican priest and inquisitor of the Holy Office . He exercised his office in Bologna from 1838 to 1859 , the city belonged to the Vatican Papal States . Father Pier Gaetano Feleti is above all interested today as he is one of the actors in the Edgardo Mortara case . He played a major role in the allegedly baptized son of a Jewish merchant family being kidnapped at the age of six and raised to be a priest in Rome.

The child was separated from his parents on June 24, 1858 when Bologna, as a city of Emilia-Romagna, was still part of the Papal States . On January 18, 1860, shortly after Emilia-Romagna was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy, Father Pier Gaetano Feleti was charged with child abduction. Archbishop Michele Viale-Prelà , who remained in Bologna , protested in vain against the arrest of the priest. According to canon law, it was not legal for a baptized child to grow up with parents of different faiths. One of the main points of the trial was the question of whether Father Feleti had acted of his own accord in having the boy separated from his parents by police force, or whether he was following orders from his superiors. The court also had to determine whether the order to seize the boy was illegal under the laws in force in Bologna at the time. The decisive factor was the credibility of the maid who had claimed to have baptized the boy during an illness . The defense of Father Feleti was based on the fact that he was then the Inquisitor of the Holy Office and was therefore entitled to his action. The defense did not consider the question of the validity of baptism to be an issue for the court to decide. In the opinion of the defender, this was the sole responsibility of the Congregation for Questions of the Faith. Father Feleti was acquitted on April 16, 1860.

He was called to Rome by the Catholic Church, where he became prior of a Dominican monastery. He held this position until his death in 1881.

literature

• Albert Zacher: The robbery of the Jewish boy Mortara. According to the latest research, told by Dr. A. Zacher (Rome). New Frankfurter Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1908.
• David Kertzer: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. A child in the hands of the Vatican . Hanser, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3-446-19488-5 .
• Thomas Brechenmacher : The Vatican and the Jews. History of an Unholy Relationship from the 16th Century to the Present . Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-406-52903-0 .

Single receipts

1. ↑ Kertzer, p. 311