Emanuela Orlandi was 15 years old when she was last seen alive in Rome. Her brother is now explaining why he supports a new theory about his sister’s disappearance, writes The Guardian.
Not long before she disappeared in the summer of 1983, Emanuela Orlandi went to Piazza del Catalone, a small square just outside the Vatican walls, to meet friends.
It was still a party atmosphere during that warm month, just weeks after AS Roma won the Serie A title. In a photo taken at the time, Orlandi, then 15, wears a headband in yellow and red, made by her mother in the colors of the football team. It was one of the last photos taken before she disappeared without a trace on June 22, 1983. Her older brother, Pietro Orlandi, is still searching for answers.
“Emanuela was here with friends,” he said in an interview. “They were still celebrating; it was the last photo taken of her smiling.”
The mystery of the disappearance of Emanuele, who has not been seen by her family since she left her home in the Vatican, where her father was a lay employee in the papal household, has gripped Italy for four decades. But it wasn’t until January of this year that the Vatican began its own investigation, promising to find out the truth in the case that has produced many theories, some of them outlandish, but no concrete facts. Prosecutors in Rome began cooperating with the Vatican on the investigation this month.
“For 40 years there has never been collaboration between the Vatican and prosecutors,” said Orlandi, who recently sparked controversy after suggesting that the much-revered Pope John Paul II may have been involved in the disappearance of his older sister small. “Until a few years ago, the Vatican said it knew nothing, that she disappeared in Italy and that it should be investigated there. On the other hand, I was told that Rome has a lot of documents. All these years the Vatican has remained silent – maybe that means someone there has evidence of what happened.”
The Vatican’s investigation began months after the Netflix series Vatican Girl brought Emanuele’s case back into the global spotlight. The series explored theories that have emerged over the years, the first being that she was kidnapped by a gang to blackmail the Vatican into releasing Mehmet Ali Ağca, who was jailed in 1981 after attempting to assassinate John Paul II. Her disappearance was also linked to a wave of financial scandals at the Vatican bank, an alleged sex ring run by the Vatican police and the mafia.
Another theory was that Emanuela was taken to London, where she lived for years in a youth home run by a Catholic congregation, with her expenses funded by the Vatican. According to this hypothesis, she died in London before her body was transferred back to Rome and buried in the Vatican. In 2019, two tombs in the Vatican were reopened after it was discovered that Emanuela was buried there. No human remains were found.
But the new, and most startling, claim in the Netflix series came from a childhood friend of Emanuele’s, who said the teenager told her she was molested by “someone close” to John Paul II.
“She said the conversation took place a few days before Emanuela disappeared and that [presupusul incident] it took place in the Vatican gardens,” Orlandi said. That Emanuela was a victim of pedophilia is probably the most plausible theory, she added. “When you know that certain things are done in that environment, you wonder if maybe she wasn’t put in that situation.”
Orlandi’s determination to learn the truth angered the Vatican. In April, during the hearings, he shared an audio tape containing an alleged conversation between a journalist and the head of a criminal organization in Rome suspected of being involved in Emanuela’s disappearance. In the recording, he insinuated that the late John Paul II, whose original name was Karol Józef Wojtyła, went out at night with elderly clergymen looking for teenage girls.
Part of the recording was later broadcast on an Italian TV program during an interview with Orlandi, in which he added: “I was told that Wojtyła occasionally went out in the evening with two Polish monsignors and it was certainly not to bless the houses .”
Pope Francis denounced the “offensive and unfounded insinuations”, while the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said the “anonymous, shameful accusations” were “madness”.
Orlandi claims the Vatican exploited the controversy to discredit him. “I’ve always said I think John Paul knew something,” he said. “But it was the person on the audio tape who used abusive words against him. I also gave the names of the two monsignors, who were close to John Paul. Everyone knew that they sometimes went out at night together. I simply added that [ieșirile] theirs were not for religious reasons.”
He also questions whether Pope Francis knew anything about his sister’s fate when, shortly after his election in 2013, the pontiff told him that Emanuela was “in heaven”.
“He said these words to me, I don’t know why,” Orlandi said. “For [Joseph] Ratzinger [predecesorul său, Papa Benedict al XVI-lea], Emanuela was a taboo. So the fact that Francis used his name led me to believe that he wanted to work with me, but since then he never wanted to meet me again.”
Orlandi, who has three other sisters, described a privileged childhood within the walls of the Vatican, where they enjoyed the gardens and felt as if they were in the “safest place in the world”.
The search for the truth about his sister is partly influenced by guilt. The day she disappeared, Emanuela asked him to take her to her flute lesson. “It was so hot in Rome and I didn’t want to go,” he said. “She was a bit upset and left. I still wonder what would have happened if I had taken her.”
Time will tell if the investigation will bring him the answers he needs. “All these years, we don’t know if Emanuela is alive or dead,” he said. “I will continue my fight to the end.”
Editor : R.K.
