Emanuela Orlandi kidnapped for Vatican sex parties, priest says

GlobalPost
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Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped for sex parties, with Vatican security acting on behalf of foreign diplomats, a controversial priest inside the Holy See told an Italian newspaper.

Orlandi, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, disappeared from Rome’s streets 29 years ago after a flute lesson.

Italy has long fixated on her disappearance, and now Father Gabriele Amorth has added to the mystery by saying Vatican security abducted her for sex parties with foreign diplomats, The Telegraph reported.

“Parties were organized, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the ‘recruiter’ of the girls,” Amorth told La Stampa, as translated by The Telegraph. “The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle.”

Amorth, who said Orlandi was later murdered, is no stranger to controversy.

Pope John Paul II appointed him the Vatican’s chief exorcist, and he generated international headlines late last year when he claimed yoga and Harry Potter were both evil.

“Practicing yoga is Satanic,” he told interviewers, “it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter.”

Amorth, 86, is now retired, but claims to have conducted thousands of exorcisms in his career.

The Orlandi case has endured its own share of twists and turns.

More from GlobalPost: Bones found inside gangster’s tomb as Vatican mystery deepens

Conspiracy theorists and criminals have long referenced her name; some say she was a pawn for the mafia, while others connect her abduction to an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.

Last week, Italian police unearthed Enrico (Renatino) De Pedis’s gravesite looking for Orlandi’s remains.

Rival mafia gunned down De Pedis in 1990, but investigators found nothing unusual in his grave.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, claims Orlandi is living as a nun in Eastern Europe.

Agca said his Grey Wolves organization kidnapped Orlandi – the daughter of a Vatican employee – to trade for his release.

More from GlobalPost: Couple jailed over ‘witchcraft’ murder of girl, 15

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