Edgardo Mortara

Edgardo Mortara was a little boy who lived in Italy in the 1800s, and he was known for an event that happened when he was six years old. Edgardo was born to a Jewish family, but when he was a baby, he was taken away from them by local police because a nanny — a woman who was helping to take care of him — said she had baptized him, which meant he was now a Christian and part of the Catholic Church. This made a lot of people very upset, since Edgardo's family was Jewish and thought that he should stay with them. For a long time, the Pope (the leader of the Catholic Church) wouldn't allow Edgardo to be returned to his family, and it became a very famous story around the world. In the end, though, the Pope allowed Edgardo to stay with his family, and Edgardo got to continue to learn about all different kinds of religions and beliefs.