One of Rome’s most enduring mysteries – the 1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican employee’s daughter – took a new twist on Saturday when papal authorities announced that they had discovered two sets of bones under a stone manhole.
On Thursday the Vatican had pried open the tombsof two 19th-century German princesses in the cemetery of the Pontifical Teutonic College after Emanuela’s family had received a tip that her remains might be buried there. But the tombs turned out to be completely empty, creating yet another mystery over the whereabouts of the dead princesses.
The Vatican pledged further investigation and on Saturday a spokesman said they had “identified two ossuaries, located under the pavement of an area inside the Pontifical Teutonic College, covered by a manhole”.
He said the area had been sealed off and would be opened for forensic experts to investigate this week.
The last recorded structural work at the college and its cemetery was in the 1960s and 70s. Orlandi disappeared in 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome.
Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See. Over the years her disappearance has been linked to everything from the plot to kill Pope John Paul II to the financial scandal of the Vatican bank and Rome’s criminal underworld.
The last major twist in the case came in 2012, when forensic police exhumed the body of a reputed mobster from the crypt of a Roman basilica in hopes of finding Orlandi’s remains as well. The search turned up no link.
Last year bones were found underneath the Vatican’s embassy to Italy in Rome. Italian media immediately speculated the remains could belong to Orlandi or another girl who went missing around the same time. But forensic tests showed the bones long pre-dated their disappearances.
PAT SAYS
The primary tragedy in this case is foe Emanuela Orlandi and her family. I’m sure that 36 years later the family still feels the pain.
But for those of us not in the family and circle of friends we are left wondering and scratching our heads that at a place that claims to be Christ’s representative on earth may be harbouring the remains of an innocent, possibly murdered teenager.
From history we know that the Church of Rome has slaughtered countless numbers of thousands in the Crusades, The Counter Reformation and the Inquisition.
But what we really don’t know is how many individuals, families and groups have been murdered and secretly buried in the Vatican over 2,000 years.
We know where 600 babies that died under the care of the Tuam nuns were buried – in a disused sewerage tank.
How many more of these mass burials have there been, globally, in RC property? We do not know.
How many people have been murdered by the Mafia working with RC church people in Italy?
We know Hitler killed 6,000,000 in his torture camps from 1939 – 1945 – a period of 6 years.
How many RC related murders have there been in the last 1600 years?
Could the number be greater that the horrible Holocaust?
WHY ARE THERE HUMAN REMAINS IN A MANHOLE IN THE VATICAN ???
The Vatican 1600 year project has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth!
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 