Emanuela Orlandi disappeared on June 22, 1983, after class at a music school adjacent to the Sant’Apollinare Opus Dei Catholic Church near Piazza Navona in Rome. I am 15 years old
The Vatican will hand over to the Rome city prosecutor evidence that the 15-year-old daughter of one of its employees disappeared 40 years ago.
Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of an important Vatican official and living within the walls of the Holy City, disappeared in the summer of 1983 while returning home after a music lesson in the center of Rome.
The Vatican – which has been under scrutiny for years for its handling of the case – announced in January that it had opened a new investigation.
The Vatican said in a statement on Thursday that the office of Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Titti had “gathered all available evidence from various institutions of the Vatican and the Holy See, while seeking evidence through conversations with persons responsible for certain offices at the time of the events”.
Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother, next to St. Peter’s Square on January 14 during a demonstration marking the 40th anniversary of his sister’s disappearance. Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
The Vatican press office said it had received “some intelligence information worthy of further investigation”. His office will therefore “send all the relevant documents from recent weeks to the public prosecutor in Rome so that he can examine them and take the direction he deems most appropriate”.
It is not clear what the documents refer to and whether they are new or archived.
This is the first time the Vatican has announced that it will hand over the documents to Italian authorities.
The Vatican’s investigation is now closed, the statement said, but Didi pledged to “continue his actions in this regard in the coming months”, “knowing the suffering caused by the disappearance of a relative”.
Emanuela Orlandi. Courtesy of Pietro Orlandi
Emanuela Orlandi disappeared on June 22, 1983, after class at a music school adjacent to the Sant’Apollinare Opus Dei Catholic Church near Piazza Navona in Rome.
His father, Ercole Orlandi, who died in 2004, worked at the Institute for Religious Works of the Holy See. His 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 often accuses the Vatican of withholding information.
He called for a demonstration in Rome this Sunday in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo, the last place where the young woman’s body is thought to be buried. Angelus gives Sunday. Every year, Orlandi holds demonstrations around the anniversary of the disappearances.
Last year, Mark Lewis’ four-episode Netflix series sparked renewed interest in the high-profile case and shed light on a number of major conspiracy theories, including that his kidnapping was linked to the imprisoned Mehmed Ali Akka. Time for the assassination attempt on John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.
Searches for Orlandi’s remains have been carried out several times over the past four decades. In 2018, remains were found at the Holy See Consulate in Italy in central Rome, but DNA tests did not allow a match to be established.
A year later, the Vatican agreed to exhume the tombs of the two princesses believed to be buried in the cemetery of the Pontifical Teutonic College within Vatican City. The remains of the princesses were not found in the tomb, nor were those of Arlandi, but two skeletons were found under a secret door in the tomb.