 The pro-Church accounts, by contrast, described a boy very much resolved to stay where he was, and horrified by his mother's exhortations to return to the Judaism of his ancestors. In this narrative, the main reason for the Mortaras' grief was not that their son had been taken, but that he now stood to grow up in the Christian faith. According to La Civiltà Cattolica, Marianna flew into a rage on seeing a medallion hanging from Edgardo's neck bearing the image of the Virgin Mary, and ripped it off; one article went so far as to claim the Jewish mother had done this with the words: "I'd rather see you dead than a Christian!" Some of the Church's critics had charged that by keeping Edgardo, it was violating the commandment that a child should honour his father and mother — La Civiltà Cattolica countered that Edgardo still loved his family despite their religious differences and indeed, after being taught by the priests to read and write, had chosen to write his first letter to his mother, signing it "your most affectionate little son". Louis Veuillot, the ultramontane editor of the L'Univers newspaper and one of the Pope's staunchest defenders, reported after meeting Edgardo in Rome that the boy had told him "that he loves his father and his mother, and that he will go to live with them when he is older ... so that he can speak to them of Saint Peter, of God, and of the most Holy Mary."
