ROME (AP) 鈥 The Vatican said Monday it has reopened the investigation into the 1983 disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, months after a new Netflix documentary purported to shed new light on the case and weeks after her family asked the Italian Parliament to take up the cause.
The Vatican prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, opened a file on Emanuela Orlandi鈥檚 disappearance, based in part 鈥渙n the requests made by the family in various places,鈥 said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
A lawyer for the Orlandi family, Laura Sgro, said she had no independent confirmation of the development, which was first reported by Italian agencies Adnkronos, LaPresse and ANSA. She noted that her last Vatican filing on the case came in 2019.
Orlandi vanished June 22, 1983 after leaving her family鈥檚 Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.
Her disappearance has been one of the Vatican鈥檚 enduring mysteries, and over the years has been linked to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II and a financial scandal involving the Vatican bank to Rome鈥檚 criminal underworld.
The recent four-part Netflix documentary 鈥淰atican Girl鈥 explored those scenarios and also provided new testimony from a friend who said Emanuela had told her a week before she disappeared that a high-ranking Vatican cleric had made sexual advances toward her.
In addition, Sgro and Orlandi鈥檚 brother Pietro announced a new initiative last month to
Three previous initiatives in the Italian Parliament have failed to get off the ground, but Sgro and opposition lawmaker Carlo Calenda argued that the Vatican couldn't consider the case closed when there were so many questions left unanswered.
Speaking to RaiNews24 on Monday, Pietro Orlandi called Diddi's decision a 鈥減ositive step鈥 that the Vatican has apparently changed its mind, gotten over its resistance and now will go over the case from the start.
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Frances D'Emilio contributed.
