New twist in missing Vatican girl case

Leaked documents cast suspicion on the uncle of Emanuela Orlandi, who vanished aged 15 in 1983.

Pietro Orlandi fronts the media in Rome on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

The disappearance of a Rome teenager 40 years ago, for which the mafia, papal officials and even terrorists have been blamed, has taken a further twist as leaked Vatican documents cast suspicion on the girl’s uncle.

Emanuela Orlandi, a daughter of a Vatican employee, vanished aged 15 on her way home from a music lesson in 1983, prompting decades of investigations and ­theories, which were analysed last year in the Netflix documentary Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi.

Wild claims have included that she was snatched by a mafia gang owed money by priests, killed to cover up sex abuse at the Vatican or kidnapped by terrorists trying to win the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk jailed for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.

The newly leaked documents cast suspicion on a figure closer to home: Emanuela’s uncle, Mario Meneguzzi, who has since died. Among them is a letter written three months after Eman­uela’s disappearance by Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican cardinal secretary of state, to a priest who acted as a spiritual adviser to the Orlandi family.

Emanuela Orlandi

Casaroli asks the priest to confirm a story that he had heard about Meneguzzi sexually abusing Emanuela’s older sister, Nata­lina. The priest wrote: “Yes, it’s true. Natalina was subject to unhealthy attention from the uncle. She was terrified when she told me. She was told to keep it quiet otherwise she would have lost her job at the parliament where Meneguzzi, who managed the cafe, had got her work.”

La7, the Italian television channel that published the letter, pointed out that an artist’s sketch of a man seen picking up Emanuela in a car the day she vanished strongly resembled Meneguzzi.

Meneguzzi had said he received anonymous phone calls from people claiming to have kidnapped Emanuela, which helped to fuel conspiracy theories about her disappearance.

Emanuela’s brother, Pietro Orlandi, condemned what he called “mud slinging” by the Italian media. “I am angry, furious,” said Mr Orlandi, who has long claimed there was Vatican involvement in his sister’s fate.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Natalina Orlandi said her uncle had made “verbal advances” but never physically abused her, while Pietro said it had been proven that Meneguzzi was not in Rome on the day Emanuela vanished.

The documents were part of a batch handed to magistrates by Alessandro Diddi, a Vatican prosecutor who said he was keen to get to the bottom of the ­mystery after years of Vatican reticence.

Pietro Orlandi said the leaking of the letter was a “dirty trick”, adding: “I don’t know who, but someone in the Vatican did this because they want to shift the attention from inside the Vatican to outside.”

Laura Sgro, the family’s lawyer, said police had investigated Meneguzzi years ago but found no proof he was involved.

The Times