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Pope offers prayers for ‘Vatican Girl’ lost decades ago

VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - JANUARY 14: Pope Francis pays his respect next to the coffin of Cardinal George Pell as he arrives in St. Peter Basilica to attend the Funeral Of Cardinal George Pell at Altar of the Chair of St. Peter Basilica on January 14, 2023 in Vatican City, Vatican. Cardinal George Pell, a former senior Catholic Church official who was accused of sexual violence in Australia and then cleared, died on 10 January 2023 aged 81 years-old. George Pell, who served as the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy and was then considered Pope Francis' right-hand man, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2019 for the rape and sexual assault of two altar boys in 1990s Melbourne. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)  (Franco Origlia)
By Elisabetta Povoledo New York Times

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis on Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee whose disappearance remains one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries and recently was the subject of a Netflix series.

In remarks after his Angelus prayer and blessing, Francis expressed his “closeness to the family, above all, the mother,” assuring them – as well as “all families who carry the grief, the disappearance of a loved one” – of his prayers.

His remarks may have been brief, but they were words that Emanuela’s family had long waited for.

“It’s a very positive thing,” said Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s older brother. He had come to St. Peter’s Square with hundreds of supporters hoping that the pope would say something, anything, “words of hope,” he said.

The Orlandi family – first her parents and then her four siblings – has been tireless in its search for Emanuela. Family members have lobbied judicial and parliamentary authorities to investigate, gone on countless television programs to plead for tips and pursued even the most outlandish of claims. The case has enthralled Italians for four decades, and interest rose globally after Netflix broadcast a four-part documentary series in October called “Vatican Girl.”

The family has repeatedly accused the Vatican of reticence in admitting what it knows about the case. That changed this year, when Alessandro Diddi, the chief Vatican prosecutor, said he would look into Emanuela’s disappearance. And on Thursday, Diddi said in a statement that an initial review of the evidence gathered so far, as well as interviews with people who worked in the Vatican 40 years ago, had uncovered leads “worthy of further investigation.”

Emanuela disappeared June 22, 1983, in Rome after leaving a music lesson. It would hardly have made news had it not been for a phone call made to her family a few days later by a man who said her release was contingent on the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in May 1981.

That was only the first twist in what has become an ever-thickening plot that has led investigators to pursue myriad hypotheses involving a cast of suspicious characters and events.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.