Forced conversion of Giuseppe Coen, a thirteen-year-old apprentice kidnapped and baptized at the House of Catechumens, rendered untraceable to his family

Giuseppe Coen, a thirteen-year-old apprentice, was seized in Rome and taken to the House of Catechumens, where he was baptized; his family could never see him again or even learn where he was. The affair followed closely upon that of Edgardo Mortara, which all of Europe had discussed, but it did not find the same resonance: the child was older, the fiction of consent easier to maintain, and public opinion had grown weary. The method, however, was the same — the House of Catechumens received whoever presented themselves there, and a baptized person was never returned. These abductions are one of the reasons why the Jews of Rome welcomed the end of temporal power as a deliverance.