ROME
Huffington Post

Ryan Craggs

The Holy See was directly involved in the disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi in 1983, according to a contentious accusation by the Catholic Church’s leading exorcist. The Rev. Gabriele Amorth claimed that the girl’s kidnapping was a “crime of a sexual nature.”

“Parties were organized, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the ‘recruiter’ of the girls,” Amorth told La Stampa, according to a translation by The Telegraph. “The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle.”

Amorth, who was appointed by Pope John Paul II and has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms, is no stranger to controversial public statements; according to The Sun, the exorcist has called Harry Potter the “work of the devil,” and has claimed “the devil was at work in the Vatican” when discussing the Catholic…