Emanuela Orlandi, the file “on Benedict XVI’s table”. What Monsignor Pagano saw –

Emanuela Orlandi’s family has not lost hope of finding her. We are in an unprecedented moment, where there are three ongoing investigations: that of the Rome Prosecutor’s Office, the parliamentary one and the one within the Vatican in the hands of the Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi. The Pope, in his autobiography “Life. My story in History” released today, dedicates a passage to the Vatican town whose traces have been lost since 22 June 1983: “In the Vatican we still suffer greatly from its disappearance, which occurred more than forty years ago. ago, of one of our citizens, Emanuela Orlandi, who was 15 years old at the time. I continue to pray for her and her family, especially her mother. There is an investigation open in the Vatican, so that light can be shed on this story and let the truth emerge.” Words that Pietro Orlandi, the brother, defined as “important, of solidarity and closeness”, words “clear on the need for the truth to emerge”.

Monsignor Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, spoke on the Monday 18 March episode of La torre di Babele, the program hosted by Corrado Augias on La7. What is inside Emanuela Orlandi and what might be the papers that the justice of the small state has come into possession of? “In the archive there is no page, line following line, not even to imagine – says Pagano – Also because it is a fairly recent fact compared to our documents”. In short, if there are secret documents on Emanuela Orlandi, these should be dumped and made available for consultation “in future years”.

Pagano, however, recalls how the Orlandi family’s lawyer, Laura Sgrò, reported that the prosecutor Diddi “had found numerous dusty papers, and perhaps they must be with us because to have dust the papers must be decades old”. But “they aren’t there with us, I don’t know where he found them – continues the bishop at the head of the Vatican archive – I know that a file of Emanuela Orlandi existed, maybe that’s what they saw on Benedict XVI’s desk”. What is Pagano referring to? “It is the file of the echo of the press (review of newspaper articles, ed.) that Monsignor Scotti, who was archivist in the secretariat of state, showed me”. “As soon as the name of the Vatican came out for a girl who disappeared in Rome who sadly might have met who knows what fate, the Vatican was targeted – says the bishop – the press coverage was collected and brought to the Pope. But I don’t know regarding other things I have news that there is no investigation. However, if the Vatican tribunal says it has a lot of dusty papers, sooner or later I think it will show them”, concludes Pagano.