VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Crux [Denver CO]
April 15, 2023
By Elise Ann Allen
After receiving harsh backlash from the Vatican for what they said were “defamatory” insinuations against the late Pope John Paul II made on national television, the brother of a missing Italian teen has appeared to distance himself from those statements.
The row exploded after Pietro Orlandi – brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983 while on her way back from a music lesson – spent eight hours with Vatican prosecutors discussing the case.
Earlier this year the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, its prosecutor’s office, reopened the case into Emanuela’s disappearance. That decision coincided with a decision by the Italian Parliament to reopen a parliamentary commission of inquest into what has become Italy’s most famous cold case.
The decision also comes in the wake of the airing of a popular new Netflix series, “Vatican Girl,” which explores the Orlandi case and delves into the various conspiracies that have surrounded it since the beginning.
Over the past 40 years, Emanuela’s disappearance has become one of the Vatican and Italy’s most enduring mysteries, and it has become associated with various conspiracy theories, with some linking it to the plot to kill John Paul II, Vatican financial scandals, and prominent Italian mobsters.
The Netflix docu-series on her case closes with the alleged new testimony of a friend of Emanuela’s who said that a week before she had disappeared, she had confided that a high-ranking Vatican official had been sexually harassing her.
Emanuela’s brother, Pietro Orlandi, has long held that the Vatican knows more than it is letting on.
During his interrogation with Vatican prosecutors Tuesday, Orlandi provided an audiotape containing a statement from an alleged mobster saying the late Saint Pope John Paul II used to go out at night with some monsignors in tow to harass and molest underage girls.
Orlandi, after his meeting with Vatican prosecutors, later gave an interview to Italy’s La7 television network in which he played that excerpt of the tape live.
The remarks on the tape, and Orlandi’s decision to play the audio on national television despite having spoken with Vatican prosecutors mere hours earlier, was heavily criticized by several top Vatican personalities.
In a statement defending Orlandi’s actions, his lawyer, Laura Sgro, who was with him for his interrogation, said Orlandi welcomed Pope Francis’s desire to “shed full light” on his sister’s case, and that to this end, he wanted to “share with investigators all the information in his possession. Everything, nothing excluded.”
“With this in mind, he made available to the Promoter of Justice everything he knows, even the most inconvenient facts, learned over the years, obviously leaving the evaluations and necessary verifications to the investigators,” Sgro said.
She insisted that Orlandi “did not intend to make accusations against any person,” and that his only request was that “the search for the truth be unconditional.”
Her statement comes after the Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, published an article in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, blasting both the recording and Orlandi’s decision to air it on national television.
“Think what would happen if someone had gone on television to affirm, on the basis of ‘hearsay’ from an anonymous source and without the shred of a match or even a third-hand testimony, that your father or grandfather left the house at night together with some ‘snack buddies’ to harass underage girls,” Tornielli said.
If that person had a universally esteemed reputation, “Would we not have read, perhaps, comments and editorials indignant at the unspeakable way I which the good reputation of this great man, loved by so man, has been harmed?” he asked.
Tornielli noted that when the tape was played, “Everything was presented as credible, accompanied by some winking smiles, as if they were talking about an open secret.”
“Evidence? None. Clues? Least of all. Witnesses at least of second or third hand? Not even the shadow. Only anonymous defamatory accusations,” he said.
Calling the episode “madness,” Tornielli insisted that he is not saying this because John Paul II is a saint or because he was pope, but because it is a “media massacre” that “saddens and dismays by wounding the hearts of millions of believers and non-believers.”
Indicating the potential for legal action, Tornielli said “The defamation must be denounced because it is unworthy of a civilized country to treat any person in this way, living or dead, whether cleric, layman, pope.”
“It is sacrosanct that a 360-degree investigation be undertaken to seek the truth about the disappearance of Emanuela,” he said, but insisted that “no one deserves to be defamed in this way, without even a trace of evidence, based on the rumors of some unknown character from the criminal underworld or some sleazy anonymous comment broadcast on TV.”
In her statement Friday, Sgro said Orlandi’s actions were misinterpreted, and that Orlandi “regrets that some people have extrapolated some phrases, manipulating the big picture of his statements.”
“He is also sorry that, among those who accuse him in the press of harming the memory of those who are no longer here, there are some who, contacted numerous times over the years by Mr. Orlandi, are always removed from a sincere and authentic conversation with him,” she said.
The reference was to Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former archbishop of Krakow and former longtime secretary to John Paul II.
In a statement published after Orlandi aired the videotape, Dziwisz said the accusations in the audio consist of “very rash statements, but it would be more accurate to immediately say ignorable insinuations.”
He said Emanuela’s disappearance was “distressing,” and voiced hope that the case, including current investigations, would be freed “from the maelstrom of misdirection, mythomanias, and profiteering” that have characterized the four-decade search for the truth thus far.
“It hardly needs to be said that the aforementioned insinuations, which are supposed to have originated from elusive circles of the Roman underworld, which are now given semblance of pseudo-presentability, are in reality ranting accusations, false from beginning to end, unrealistic, laughable border on comical if they weren’t tragic, indeed criminal themselves,” Dziwisz said.
What happened to Emanuela is a “gigantic crime,” he said, but insisted that it is equally criminal “to profit from it with uncontrollable ravings, aimed at discrediting people and environments worthy of universal esteem until proven otherwise.”
Dziwisz said he shares in the family’s pain, but insisted that as John Paul II’s secretary, it was his duty to set the record straight.
John Paul II, he said, “took charge of the affair” from the beginning. “He acted and made others act so that it had a happy outcome; he never encouraged actions of concealment of any kind, but he always manifested affection, closeness, and help in most different ways to Emanuela’s family.”
Dziwisz voiced his hope that inquiries would progress with “correctness on the part of all actors.”
He also suggested that legal action ought to be taken, voicing his hope that “Italy, the universal cradle of law, will be able with its legal system to supervise the right to a good reputation of those who are no longer here today but who from above watches and intercedes.”
In her statement, Sgro acknowledged Pope Francis’s efforts to solve the case by reopening the Vatican’s investigation, saying, “The search for the truth is an act of courage and the Holy Father has expressed his desire to follow this path with strength.”
She voiced hope that others would be equally committed, saying the family’s wish “is that this extraordinary, but dutiful act, does not only belong to His Holiness.”