New theory emerges in mysterious disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi
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A teenage girl whose disappearance from the streets of Rome ranks as one of Italy’s greatest unsolved mysteries was sexually assaulted by a senior Holy See figure, it has been claimed, in a chilling new twist to the long-running mystery.
The daughter of a Vatican office clerk whose family lived inside the tiny city state, Emanuela Orlandi was 15 when she vanished as she returned from a flute lesson in the capital in 1983. She has not been seen since.
Theories about the reasons for her disappearance have revolved around murky claims of Cold War skulduggery, sex trafficking, banking scandals, mafia vendettas and negotiations over the release of a Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II.
Now a Netflix series called Vatican Girl, which will be released on Oct 20, has come up with a startling new theory about what happened to the schoolgirl.
A woman who was a childhood friend says that in the days before the teenager disappeared, she was sexually molested within the walls of the Vatican by “someone close to the Pope”, who at the time was John Paul II.
Knowing that she harboured this explosive secret, a criminal organisation called the Magliana Gang kidnapped her as a means of putting pressure on the Vatican to pay back money they had borrowed to covertly fund Solidarity, the trade union that was fighting communism in the Pope’s native Poland, it is claimed.
The woman, whose face is obscured in the documentary, said that Emanuela told her she had “a secret to confess” in a conversation they had about a week before her disappearance.
Emanuela was “scared, even ashamed”, the friend, now middle-aged, said.
She broke down in tears as she said she had never divulged the information before. Asked if she was afraid of the consequences, she replied: “I have always been afraid. It’s a terrible world.”
The Magliana Gang may have used this “sexual secret” as “the ultimate leverage of blackmail” against the Vatican, said Andrea Purgatori, an Italian journalist who has followed the case since the beginning.
Emanuela may have been “a sacrificial lamb” – the Vatican did nothing to save her because it did not want her secret to be revealed, he said.
Emiliano Fittipaldi, an investigative journalist and another expert on the case, said: “If it was a question of money, it would have been better to kidnap a cardinal or a prominent prelate. Why kidnap this girl and not a cardinal?
“The only explanation for me is that she had a great secret that could have created an enormous scandal [for the Vatican].”
The family of Ms Orlandi, as well as many Vatican observers, claim that the Holy See knows exactly what happened to the teenager, how she died and where she is buried.
“I am absolutely certain that the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela,” said Laura Sgrò, the family’s lawyer.
“It is time for the Vatican to come clean on exactly what happened and give her family closure. There’s no time to lose,” she said, pointing out that key figures in the affair have already died and others are elderly.
There was hope that the reforming Pope Francis might shed light on the mystery when he was elected in 2013.
But the only remark he has made to the family is that “Emanuela is in heaven”, without divulging how, where or why she died.
