The Vatican announced Thursday that promising leads “worthy of further investigation” have surfaced exactly 40 years after the teen daughter of an employee vanished while living there.
Under the guidance of its recently appointed criminal prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, the Holy See forwarded all relevant evidence to Roman prosecutors that had been gathered in the six months since he reopened the investigation of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi — who vanished in 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome.
Diddi said his office had collected “all the evidence available in the structures of the Vatican and the Holy See,” including interrogations with people who have held positions at the papacy in the years surrounding Orlandi’s disappearance.
The move marks the first time the Vatican has publicly handed over documents to Italian authorities.
It is unclear whether the evidence contains any new documentation, but the prosecutor had previously said he would re-examine all archival files, documents, reports and testimonies.
“It has proceeded to examine the material, confirming some investigative leads worthy of further investigation and transmitting all the relevant documentation, in recent weeks, to the Prosecutor’s Office in Rome, so that the latter may take a look at it and proceed in the direction it deems most appropriate,” Diddi said in a statement.
The announcement suggests the Vatican has completed its investigation, but the prosecutor promised to continue pursuing justice for the missing teen.
The case surrounding Orlandi’s disappearance has captivated Rome throughout the decades but was reinvigorated last year with the four-part Netflix documentary “Vatican Girl,” which revealed that a high-ranking Vatican cleric was accused of making sexual advances toward the teen just a week before she went missing.
Orlandi and her family lived inside the Vatican grounds while her father worked as an usher for the papacy.
Orlandi’s brother, Pietro, pushed the allegations further in April by playing an audio tape on national television from an alleged gangster who said girls were brought into the Vatican to be molested and that the pope at the time, John Paul II, knew about it.
Various other conspiracies surround the Orlandi mystery, linking the teen to everything from a botched plot to kill Pope John Paul II and a financial scandal involving the Vatican bank to the now-defunct Banda della Magliana gang.
Orlandi’s family has continuously pushed for Italian authorities to uncover the truth surrounding her case and have accused the Vatican of covering up a crime.
In the wake of Diddi’s announcement, Pietro revealed plans for a staged protest in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, when Francis gives his weekly blessing to the faithful.
With Post Wires
