Secrets of the Vatican: What Emanuela Orlandi’s Disappearance Tells Us About the Catholic Church
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When the 15-year-old ‘Vatican Girl’ Emanuela Orlandi went missing on her way home from a flute lesson in June 1983, no one could have foreseen the trajectory the investigations would take. Theories regarding her disappearance involve the Italian Mafia, a Turkish paramilitary group, and most prominently, the Vatican itself, with serious political and financial corruption exposed by police and journalists. 40 years later, the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi has reopened investigations, yet, with so much at stake for the Catholic Church, will the Orlandi family or the public ever know the truth?
On the 3rd of July 1983, two weeks after Orlandi’s disappearance, Pope John Paul II addressed the Orlandi family during a speech in St. Peter’s Square. He expressed his wish for her to be ‘returned’ to her family, despite it never being publicly stated that she had been abducted. This was the first sign that the Vatican knew more than they were letting on. In 2013, Pope Francis met Emanuela’s brother Pietro, and told him “Emanuela is in heaven,” referring to her death which had never been confirmed. Though the Vatican have denied any knowledge, the evidence clearly suggests that the Church was involved in her disappearance to some extent, whether they orchestrated it, or merely hid evidence.
One of Orlandi’s school friends stated that days before her disappearance, Emanuela came to her with a secret; she had been “bothered” by a person “very close to the Pope,” and her friend was led to believe it was sexual in nature. An incident like this made Orlandi a huge threat to the Church’s reputation, putting her in a vulnerable position: at the mercy of one of the world’s most powerful institutions. The Church has come under intense scrutiny in recent years regarding the cover-up of sexual assault cases involving members of the clergy. The systematic ‘hushing up’ of information combined with an endemic culture of secrecy makes it seem ever more plausible that Orlandi’s disappearance was in some way related to a ‘scandal’ that the Church wanted to bury.
She went missing at a turbulent time for the Church, just two years after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Mehmet Ali Agca, a member of the Gray Wolves (a far-right Turkish nationalist group), stated he shot at the Pope ‘as a protest against the imperialism of the Soviet Union and the United States,’ though his true motives remain unknown. He was arrested and imprisoned in Italy, and many believe that Orlandi was held hostage by the Gray Wolves in exchange for the release of Agca, merely a pawn in a politically motivated transaction. Another theory is that Orlandi was kidnapped by the criminal organisation Banda della Magliana as a way of pressuring the Vatican to return money laundered through the Vatican bank. The Vatican then funnelled this money to Polish anti-communist trade union Solidarność; the support of the Catholic Church played a huge role in the end of the communist regime in Poland. These revelations are damning; exposing the widespread corruption within the Vatican that Emanuela Orlandi may have become entangled in.
But why reopen the case now? After 40 years of futile conspiracy theories, the Vatican’s decision to resume investigations into Orlandi’s disappearance signifies a cultural shift led by Pope Francis, with aims of increasing transparency. There is also pressure from the public; with a new Netflix show delving into the case, and an increasing distrust of the Catholic Church, it would be a bad look for the Vatican to continue ignoring the tragic disappearance. Yet, with investigations led internally by a deeply corrupt institution, it is unlikely that the whole truth will ever come to light.