News in Christian-Jewish Relations: August 2000
The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations has joined various Italian and Israeli groups in protesting the Vatican's planned beatification on September 3 of Pope Pius IX. Pius IX was a 19th century pope who was involved in the notorious Edgardo Mortara affair, in which an Italian Jewish boy was kidnapped after having been baptized by a family maid and eventually adopted by Pius IX himself. Despite worldwide protests, the pope refused to return the child to his family, and Mortara eventually became a priest. Pius IX was also known as the last pope to have kept the Jewish community confined in a ghetto, and his beatification is also being protested by liberal Catholics who are concerned with the elevation to sainthood of a pope who was known for his reactionary policies and theology.