Vatican Police 'Involved in Kidnap, Sex Parties'

By Nick Squires
Sydney Morning Herald
May 24, 2012

http://www.smh.com.au/world/vatican-police-involved-in-kidnap-sex-parties-20120523-1z5b4.html

Poster of missing Emanuela Orlandi.

A TEENAGE girl whose disappearance in Rome has remained a mystery for 30 years was kidnapped for sex parties by a gang involving Vatican police and foreign diplomats, the Roman Catholic Church's leading exorcist has claimed.

Father Gabriele Amorth, who was appointed by the late John Paul II as the Vatican's chief exorcist, said Emanuela Orlandi was later murdered.

In the latest twist in one of the Holy See's most enduring mysteries, he said the 15-year-old was snatched from the streets of central Rome in 1983 and forced to take part in sex parties.

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"This was a crime with a sexual motive. Parties were organised, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the 'recruiter' of the girls," Father Amorth, the honorary president of the International Association of Exorcists, told La Stampa newspaper.

"The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle."

The debate over who kidnapped Emanuela and what became of her has raged in Italy for three decades.

It has been suggested that she was taken by the leader of a notorious gang of criminals, who wanted to put pressure on Vatican officials to recover money that he had allegedly lent them.

Another theory is that she was abducted to be used as a bargaining chip for the release from prison of the Turkish gunman who tried to kill John Paul II in St Peter's Square in 1981, reportedly on the orders of the KGB.

But Father Amorth, 85, dismissed the "international dimension", saying that a Vatican archivist had also come to the conclusion that Emanuela was abducted for sexual exploitation.