The death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. does not erase the bitterness in the family of Emanuela Orlandi, daughter of the Vatican official who vanished on June 22, 1983. “There is always respect for those who die – Pietro Orlandi said to Adnkronos, Emanuela’s brother, who since then has never stopped searching for the truth about his sister’s disappearance – But I continue to believe that Ratzinger is aware of the facts since he was more or less Wojtyla’s right hand at the time a word of solidarity to Emanuela, despite our many appeals, he never received us, he was a bit Pilates-esque on the matter, in the sense that he washed his hands, I never managed to speak to him, who knows, maybe he didn’t leave a few lines to his family that they suddenly came. You might never know.”
Pietro Orlandi returns to June 2008, 25 years after Emanuela’s death: “My mother went to Ratzinger’s secretary at the time, who lived in front of his house, to ask her if Ratzinger could pray for Emanuela at the Angelus on June 25 that Sunday we in St. Peter’s Square for a word from Emanuela: nothing, Mama did not give up and met Ratzinger’s secretary again, who told her that the Holy Father had stretched out his arms when asked and said that it was clear that it was a no. Some time later I read the letter in which the Secretariat of State advised the Pope not to intervene because public opinion would have thought that even the Holy Father had doubts about the matter or that he was thinking like me. I always asked for a gesture of courage, it never came”.