Cristina Cabrejas |
Rome (EFE) nobody paid much attention to him, it was one more disappearance. Until the words of John Paul II on July 3, during the Angelus, changed everything.
“I am close to the Orlandi family who are saddened by the disappearance of their daughter Emanuela: I trust in the sense of humanity of whoever is responsible for this case,” said the pope, pointing his finger at whoever had kidnapped her… the case was opened.
From there, the judicial and journalistic investigations skyrocketed, but, after 40 years, it is not really known what happened to the girl from the Vatican.
Because Emanuela’s difference from the dozens of minors who disappear in Italy every year is that she was a Vatican citizen.
Emanuela Orlandi disappeared on June 22, 1983
On June 22, 1983, the young woman, the daughter of Ercole Orlandi, who died in 2004 and who worked for the Institute for Religious Works of the Holy See, and Maria Orlandi, left the apartment inside the Vatican walls slamming the door. where he lived with his parents and three siblings, like most Vatican employees.
She left angry because her brother Pietro did not want to accompany her to her flute classes in the central Roman square of Sant’Apollinare and that was the last time he saw her.
The Orlandi family appeared in the newsrooms of the main newspapers of the time, “Paese sera”, “Messaggero” and “Il Tempo”, but no one paid attention to them because the journalistic news was marked by the last blows of the terrorism of the Red Brigades and the murderous fury of a new criminal organization that would dominate Rome: the Banda della Magliana.
However, the Pope’s words changed everything and since then, cyclically and without any results, the story of the disappearance of the girl from the Vatican has filled the pages of Italian history, becoming one of its great mysteries.
They began with the ravings of Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted against Pope John Paul II and who assured that she was kidnapped to press for her release; then the calls from “Pierluigi” and “Mario”, two strangers who tried to deceive Emanuela’s parents; or the sixteen of the “American”, named for his accent and, after making it clear that he knew something, disappeared without a trace.
In 2000, new clues, but nothing conclusive
Years later, at the beginning of 2000, the television program “Has Chi seen it?” who deals with missing persons, received an anonymous call to search for Emanuela at the tomb of Renato De Pedis, one of the leaders of the Magliana Band.
Shortly after Sabrina Minardi, who had been the mafioso’s sentimental partner, assured that the Magliana Band kidnapped the young woman.
“Renatino”, as the head of the Roman mafia was known, was buried in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare. Why did the Church give him this honor?
Emanuela was also searched there in the tomb of De Pedis and later, over the years, invoices emerged from the nuns’ residence in London, where Emanuela was supposedly taken; There has also been information about a trip to Sardinia, groups of pedophiles between the Vatican walls… in short, rivers of ink, kilometers of film, a documentary on Netflix and dozens of novels.
The penultimate chapter of the girl from the Vatican takes place when in 2019 the Orlandi family lawyer, Laura Sgrò, explained that they had received an anonymous letter with a photo of the tomb with the phrase: “look where the angel indicates”.
Pope Francis has facilitated the investigation in the Vatican
With the arrival of Pope Francis, things were somewhat easier in the Vatican, always hermetic in all these years, including the opening of a tomb in the Teutonic cemetery, where there is a statue of an angel holding a sheet with the Latin text ” Requiescat in pace” (Rest in peace) dedicated to Princess Sofia and Prince Gustav von Hohenlohe. The tomb was empty, the nearby ossuary was searched for. Nothing.
Pietro Orlandi, the girl’s brother and the face of despair in the family, continued his fight throughout all these years and last January got the Vatican prosecutor to open the investigation with new documents: conversations between cardinals who spoke of his sister .
Also this year the Italian Parliament has created a commission of inquiry to seek answers. Will they lead to the truth?