Courtesy of Pietro Orlando
Emanuela Orlandi, who lived within the walls of the Holy City, disappeared in the summer of 1983.
CNN –
The Vatican announced on Thursday that it would hand over evidence to Rome city prosecutors in the disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of one of its employees 40 years ago.
Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a prominent Vatican employee and living within the walls of the holy city, disappeared in the summer of 1983 on her way home from a music class in central Rome.
The Vatican – which has come under scrutiny over the years for its handling of the case – announced in January that it had opened a new probe.
In a statement Thursday, the Vatican said that the office of Alessandro Diddi, the Vatican promoter of justice, “collected all the evidence available in the various institutions of the Vatican and the Holy See, and at the same time evidence through interviews with the individuals in the various institutions of the Vatican and the Holy See.” was in charge of certain offices at the time of the events.”
Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother, takes part in a sit-in on January 14 to mark the 40th anniversary of her disappearance near St. Peter’s Square.
Diddi said through the Vatican press office that he had “found some investigative leads that deserve further consideration.” His office will therefore “send all relevant documents from the last few weeks to the public prosecutor of Rome so that he can examine them and proceed in the direction he deems most appropriate.”
It was unclear what the documents refer to, whether they are new or from archives.
Thursday’s development marks the first time the Vatican has publicly surrendered documents to Italian authorities.
The statement said the Vatican investigation was now closed, but Diddi promised to “continue its activities in this direction in the coming months” while “being aware of the sorrow felt at the disappearance of a relative”.
Courtesy of Pietro Orlando
A file photo of Emanuela Orlandi.
Orlandi disappeared on June 22, 1983 after a class at a music school next to the Catholic Church of Sant’Apollinare Opus Dei, near Piazza Navona in Rome.
Her father, Ercole Orlandi, who died in 2004, worked for the Institute for Religious Works of the Holy See. Her mother, Maria Orlandi, still lives in the family apartment in Vatican City. Her brother, Pietro Orlandi, has spent his life trying to find out what happened to his sister and has often accused the Vatican of hiding information.
He has called for a rally this Sunday in Rome in front of Castel Sant’Angelo, the latest place where the young girl’s body could be buried, and then headed to St. Peter’s Square to witness the Pope’s Sunday sermon Angelus. Orlandi holds rallies each year around the anniversary of the disappearance.
A four-part Netflix series directed by Mark Lewis, released last year, reignited interest in the high-profile case and shed light on several of the most well-known conspiracy theories, including that her kidnapping was linked to Mehmet Ali Agca, who was in prison for a week at the time Prison sat assassination attempt on John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.
There have been numerous searches for Orlandi’s remains over the past four decades. In 2018, human remains were found at the Holy See’s embassy in Italy in central Rome, but DNA testing revealed no match.
A year later, the Vatican approved the exhumation of the tombs of two princesses believed to be buried in the Pontifical German College Cemetery in Vatican City. The remains of the princesses were not found in the tomb, nor were Orlandi’s, but two ossuaries were found under a secret door in the cemetery.