About 200 people participated in a sit-in on Saturday afternoon close to the Vatican to demand the truth about the disappearance, 40 years ago, of a teenager, a citizen of the microstate.
Emanuela Orlandi, 15 at the time, and whose father worked for the Vatican, disappeared after a music lesson in the center of Rome on June 22, 1983. Since then, the case has given rise to multiple theses, never proven, and has never ceased to fascinate the Italians, against a backdrop of conspiracy theories implicating the secret services, the mafia, the high Vatican authorities and Freemasonry.
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"
No State, and even less the Church, can justify criminality
" proclaimed one of the banners of this sit-in organized by Pietro Orlandi, the brother of the disappeared, after the announcement Tuesday by the Vatican of the opening of investigation into this case.
“
Perhaps they (the Vatican, editor's note) have understood that the time has come to put a point.
I wish this was a full stop.
This is the first time that they have opened an investigation into the kidnapping of Emanuela, a citizen of the Vatican
,” Pietro Orlandi told the press.
"
I have always been convinced that the Vatican knows, that they are aware, that the three popes (John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, editor's note) know, and that there could be responsibilities within of the Vatican, with the help of outsiders
," he said.
The solidarity of those present "
is the strength that has pushed me to move forward all these years
", added Orlandi.
"
I hope that after 40 years it will be the good time
" after the fruitless investigations of the Italian magistrature, declared for his part Lorenzo Farina, a student who came to participate in the sit-in.
"
What also struck me was the indifference on the part of the Vatican (...) which never cooperated
," he added.
This disappearance was the subject of a 2022 series on Netflix in which Emanuela's brother claims that Pope Francis allegedly told him, "
She is in heaven
", implying - according to the family - that the Vatican knows what what happened to the girl.
The documentary, in which testimonies confirm the thesis of the kidnapping, also gives the floor to a friend of the teenager affirming that Emanuela would have confided to her that she had been “
bored
” by the sexual advances of a close friend of Pope John Paul. II in the Vatican Gardens, a few days before his disappearance.