VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday provided prayers and solidarity to the household of a Vatican schoolgirl who went lacking 40 years in the past in one among Italy’s most enduring mysteries.
Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican usher, didn’t return dwelling on June 22, 1983, after a music lesson in central Rome.
The case has drawn renewed worldwide consideration following the discharge of the Netflix sequence “Vatican Girl” late final yr.
Referring to the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance, Francis mentioned he wished “to express once again my closeness to her family, especially her mother, assuring my prayers.”
Delivering his Angelus message, Francis addressed crowds in St Peter’s Square together with Orlandi’s brother Pietro, who has lengthy campaigned for the Vatican to make clear the thriller.
Pietro Orlandi was standing with a bunch of supporters holding up images and banners that known as for “truth” and “justice.”
He welcomed the pope’s remarks, calling them “a positive signal” and “a good step forward,” in feedback to Italian news company ANSA.
Foul play has lengthy been suspected within the Orlandi case, and this yr each Vatican and Italian investigators have reopened investigations into it, with potential new leads.
Theories about Orlandi’s disappearance have run the gamut from hypothesis it was linked to a plot to kill Pope John Paul II, to solutions that she was kidnapped by the Rome underworld, to accusations she was the sufferer of a priestly pedophile group.
Earlier this yr, Pietro Orlandi performed an audio tape on Italian tv from an alleged gangster who mentioned ladies have been introduced into the Vatican to be molested and that John Paul II knew about it.
In April, Pope Francis known as the allegations “offensive and unfounded insinuations.” — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
