The new Vatican investigation into the disappearance of 15-year-old Manuela Orlandi, whose disappearance in 1983 remains the Vatican’s most famous unsolved mystery of the 20th century, was called a “farce” by the missing girl’s brother, Pietro Orlandi. This was reported by the Catholic portal Crux on June 6.
“At first I was very excited about this research.”Orlandi said. “Unfortunately, I have come to understand that for me, honestly, this investigation is a farce. They do not do anything”.
“I have asked people close to Pope Francis, who requested this investigation, to ask him if he knows what the people he assigned to handle the case are doing, because this is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.” – Pietro added.
Orlandi’s comments came during a June 4 public event in Milan, where he appeared during a discussion about Italy’s femicide crisis alongside Father Patrizio Coppola, a prominent Italian priest known as “Father Joystick” for founding an academy of development of video games for young people in the United States. at risk.
The debate was moderated by the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who was once accused by the Vatican court for his participation in the Vatilix case.
The fate of Emanuela Orlandi, who disappeared after a music lesson in central Rome in June 1983, has long been linked to the Vatican because her father was a minor official in the prefecture of the Papal Household under Pope John Paul II and his family lived in an apartment on Vatican grounds.
Public interest in the case was sparked by the success of a 2022 Netflix miniseries called Vatican Girl.
In January 2023, after the first premiere of the miniseries, the Vatican’s defender of justice, Italian lawyer Alessandro Diddi, announced that he was launching a new investigation at the direct request of Pope Francis. Around the same time, Rome prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi launched a new investigation into the case.
Earlier this year, the Italian parliament voted to launch its own investigation, linking it to the similar case of Mirella Gregori, another teenager who disappeared around the same time. So far, the commission has heard from relatives of the two missing girls, as well as journalists who have covered the cases over the years.
“There are three investigations, and this is significant because there have never been three modern investigations like this.”said Pietro Orlandi, who has dedicated his life to finding the truth about his sister and other cases of missing Italians.
Orlandi said that while he has faith in the parliamentary investigation, he has lost confidence in the Vatican investigation.
“When you heard me [Дидди]”I was very excited to suggest several people who could really step forward, but they never received a call in over a year.”Orlandi said.
He said that, based on a brief meeting with Pope Francis shortly before his election in 2013, the pontiff knows more than he has revealed.
“When we met in 2013 at that famous meeting, he told me: ‘Emanuela is in heaven.’ She said this to me and my mother after mass at St. Anne’s Church, among other people.”Orlandi said, remembering a story he has told many times in the past.
“It was a delicate way of saying that Emanuela was dead. I asked her private secretary and the secretary of state to have a very private meeting because for the Pope, as head of state, saying that Emanuela is dead means that he knows something more than our family knows. There has never been an opportunity like this.”Orlandi added.
In particular, Orlandi blamed the three recent popes – John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis – for not getting to the bottom of his sister’s case.
“Those are three things they just can’t do. “Pope Francis, Pope Ratzinger and John Paul II betrayed the teachings of Jesus Christ with their behavior.”he said, drawing applause from the crowd gathered at Milan’s Teatro Manzoni.
In late May, Emanuela Orlandi’s cousin, Pietro Meneguzzi, testified before a parliamentary committee, dismissing complex conspiracy theories linked to international conspiracies and urging investigators to focus on “more mundane and more serious” clues, mainly about the possibility of that Emanuela became the victim of a sexual predator.
Source: Rossa Primavera
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.