Original subtitles

I said to him, "What kind of trouble have you got me into?"

And he said, "Sabri, it's all a game of power.

Do you understand this?"

Somehow, people started showing solidarity with us.

Because over time, a movement rose around this story of Emanuela.

And we made the Vatican understand

that they weren't as untouchable anymore.

About two weeks after the election of the new Pope

he was going to hold a mass in the Parish of Sant'Anna.

Emanuela's parish in the Vatican.

So I found a way to go to this mass

with my mother and my sister Federica.

The Orlandi family has lived in the Vatican for 100 years

and served seven Popes.

So we hoped that he could give us the opportunity to speak about Emanuela.

But he shut us down immediately

because as my mother got in front of him, he said only four words.

It froze my blood to hear the Pope say that Emanuela was dead.

I remember saying to him

"My hope is that she may still be alive"

and he took my hand and repeated

"Emanuela

is in heaven."

That's it.

-What did the Pope say? -She is in Heaven.

I said, "But there is no proof

so for me, it's a duty to look for her alive."

And he repeated, "Emanuela is in Heaven."

We don't know if Emanuela is dead or alive, there is no proof.

If a Head of State says now, "Emanuela is dead"

then he knows something we don't.

I'm Maria Orlandi

and I'm the mom of Emanuela Orlandi.

I've been waiting for her for years.

I can't wait to hug her again, now or when I die.

We will meet again.

My thoughts are always with Emanuela.

And she gives me strength and courage.

Unfortunately, you don't know anything. So you keep praying to the Lord.

Without prayer, there is nothing in life.

Leaks of secret news and top-secret documents

end up on the newspapers' front pages.

First, a letter from Monsignor Viganò criticizing budgetary...

My name is Emiliano Fittipaldi, I'm an investigative journalist

and I've been working on the Vatican for many years.

In 2016 I had written a book

regarding a number of financial scandals in the Vatican

which led to the Vatileaks scandal.

It was stressful because within the Vatican

the investigators tried to fabricate lies

about me and my work.

I discovered during the trial that they don't want

the world to know almost anything about what they get up to.

During the trial, something happened that really shocked me

because I didn't know about it.

A witness summoned to testify while being questioned

by judicial officials of the Vatican. A priest.

A priest who was a secretary

in a very important...

And who told an incredible story that nobody knew in detail.

Two years earlier, somebody had got into this Vatican ministry.

They had gone in with keys, so without leaving any trace.

But then they'd used a blow-torch

to break into one of the 14 or 15 large safes

which were on the second or third floor.

And they had stolen some documents

classified documents which concerned "matters from the past," so he said.

Political scandals, financial investments, and ties with Freemasonry.

Nobody knew the story

or the details of this incredible theft.

Because this Vatican-owned building is in Italy

but under the Vatican jurisdiction.

So the Vatican Police worked on it alone.

To this day, we still don't know what the Vatican Police concluded.

We know for sure, though, that some documents came back.

And when they opened that parcel, they found many of the documents inside.

Including a secret dossier...

about Emanuela Orlandi.

The Vatican had always denied the existence of internal documents

of internal investigations within the Holy See

in the archive of the Secretariat of State

or any other archive.

When I realized

that there was a chance that documents existed

about the biggest mystery of the Vatican

and of Italy, in the last 35 years

I hammered my contacts for months to find these documents about Emanuela Orlandi.

Priests, cardinals, officials.

But there was one in particular that I was quite sure knew that story

in full or at least in part.

So I started to call them.

The first time they told me that basically they knew nothing about it.

The second time they told me

"Look, I will tell you the truth. I have only read this document.

I read it, but I cannot give you anything because I do not have it to hand."

The third time it was the source who called me.

And they told me, "Emiliano, let's meet in a bar in Rome," which I knew.

I went by motorbike.

I arrived five minutes before the appointment.

I was nervous.

He arrived.

Sat down, we ordered

and he told me, "Emiliano, I must hand you a gift."

This is what he said.

So he opened a backpack he'd brought with him

and inside the backpack, there was this very folder.

Five pages, probably photocopies

dated 28 March 1998

that looked like a cover letter

to a much thicker dossier of 197 pages, it read.

The letter regarding Emanuela Orlandi was written

by Cardinal Lorenzo Antonetti who

at the time, was the head of APSA

which is the institution that manages all of the Vatican's considerable assets.

On this first page, the author of the document, Antonetti

states that he will make a list of expenditures...

"Expenses to support

the departure from home of citizen Emanuela Orlandi."

How many years had we spent together

because we lived all those years in the Vatican, looking for Emanuela?

How many leads were followed?

And if those documents were indeed true

then the Vatican had always known what had happened to Emanuela.

The document...

reveals sensational and surprising information.

Like the expenses the Vatican sustained

for tuition fees, food and accommodation

medical bills, and travel expenses.

The other incredible thing is that these payments from the Vatican

for Emanuela Orlandi don't just last for a year

but they carry on from 1983 until 1997.

Which would mean...

...away from her family and away from Italy...

for 14 years.

There is one entry

on page 2 of this document

which for me is one of the most important entries in this document.

That is tuition fees plus room and board

at 176 Chapman Road in London. Eight million lire.

It wasn't easy to work out what was at 176 Chapman Road.

I immediately went on Google Maps, and I typed in "Chapman Road"

and I found out that there were three Chapman Roads in London

but none of them went up to the number 176.

So, it was a mystery for several days.

But then, having persisted for hours

I found out that it was probably a typo.

The street wasn't Chapman Road but Clapham Road.

At 176 Clapham Road, as I discovered

actually, there is a youth hostel for girls.

Only for girls

run by the Scalabrinani Fathers.

A Catholic religious congregation...

which has a very strong connection with the Vatican.

We went there to seek information

to understand if they had information about Emanuela Orlandi.

But it's clear that

if Emanuela had been there she would have used another name

or she probably wouldn't have been registered.

And of course, we didn't find anything.

In those five pages

it was said that Emanuela lived for 15 years in London.

It is painful to think she might have suffered. It is painful...

to think of anything.

The truth is

we do not know anything about her life.

If what was written there was true

when Emanuela was returned by Minardi to a priest...

Emanuela had been smuggled

to another country, to England.

Probably brought into a Catholic environment

so she would be closer to God

and to some extent that cleared their conscience.

It was shocking.

On the fifth page of this document

there's a final expense entry.

Twenty-one million lire.

"General activities and transfer to the Vatican City State

with relative handling of the final procedures."

When I read it, I immediately thought

that Emanuela was dead, that she had died in London

and that then someone had brought her body

back to her home, meaning to the Vatican

where, according to this document, she had been buried.

Buried and hidden a few meters from her home

and from her family who has been looking and waiting for her for 37 years.

If it's true

it would be even more monstrous.

Emanuela returns to the Vatican to be buried and you don't let her mother know?

This is so awful

that it leads me to think it can't be true.

That it's not possible

because something like this is too awful to be true.

But if it is

it would be the biggest scandal

in the contemporary history of the Church.

Whenever we asked something

they were defensive, "We had nothing to do with it, we never did anything."

And if this five-page story is true

that, in my opinion, is wickedness.

It's just wickedness and indifference to the pain of others.

I needed a new lawyer

who could offer an insider's knowledge of the Vatican

and who knew how to move within the Vatican.

I chose the lawyer Laura Sgrò.

Pietro had been following me during Vatileaks.

A trial that had huge media coverage worldwide.

It was about the uncovering of confidential documents of the Pope.

Pietro came to see me, it felt very strange.

I had been following Emanuela's story since the beginning.

Like any eight-year-old girl.

When I was eight, he was a 20-year-old boy

like my elder brothers, and now he was an adult man

who'd spent his entire life looking for his sister.

I already had a whole lot of enemies from Vatileaks. So many of them.

Trying to ask for answers from the Vatican

was a huge challenge.

It's a system that relies entirely on the absolute monarch, that is the Pope.

So first, I studied this immense paper trail.

It took me six months to read all the documents.

The thing that really hit me in a bad way...

was the absolute lack of collaboration from the Vatican.

In some way, the Vatican washed their hands of it.

In my opinion

they were happy to take no responsibility for Emanuela's case.

They hid behind their laws, their guarantees

and they never interrogated anybody.

Then, in 2018, like every morning

as I was coming into the office, I passed by the mailbox.

And I found, among many other letters

a white envelope.

I opened the envelopes.

And to my great surprise, in a white envelope

without a letterhead or an addressee

I found this letter.

There was only one sentence written on it.

"If you want to find Emanuela, search where the angel is looking."

And together with this page

there was a picture of a grave with a statue of an angel.

The final expenses of those famous five sheets

were the costs of returning a possible corpse.

The Vatican has only two burial sites.

One is under Sant'Anna Church.

The other one is this cemetery, which is the Teutonic Cemetery.

I called Pietro.

We went to the Teutonic Cemetery.

We started going around the tombs.

And we found the angel.

The Orlandis had been basically everywhere

to search for Emanuela.

Yet, that tip-off

said she was buried a few hundred meters from their home

I decided to write to the Secretary of State.

"I'm telling you that Emanuela is buried in your house

now you have to answer me."

Frankly, we wrote it

thinking that along with our other requests

it would be left unanswered.

Yet after a few months

we learn from a press release from the Holy See

that they were arranging the opening not just of one tomb

but also a tomb adjacent to the one we had been directed to.

So finally these tombs would be opened.

Where else could the Vatican have buried Emanuela if not in their own home?

The safest place where no one would ever go looking

could be only their home.

Many people said, "At least if they find her remains all this will be over."

I felt anxious, I have to be honest.

They then broke through the tomb's floor...

and discovered underneath a large room 3x3 meters wide.

Please, the tombs are empty.

There are no graves, there are no bones.

They are completely empty.

Not finding Emanuela was a bit of a relief for me, I must admit.

Even though everything was left hanging

at least that wasn't the day that Emanuela died for me.

I think there are people inside the Vatican

who know what happened to Emanuela

and those people are still being blackmailed for that.

And from time to time information comes out

that is a way of saying to them

"Be careful, we know what happened to Emanuela."

The tombs too were used

in my opinion, precisely for this reason.

And what happened next...

in my view, proves it.

Viganò came to visit me, and he told me

an extraordinary story.

Things regarding the exact night of the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi.

It was 22 June 1983.

Welcome back, friends.

African high pressure is affecting the Lazio region

causing scorching days across the area.

In central Rome

temperatures will reach 37 degrees Celsius with a humidity of...

The Pope, John Paul II, was in Poland.

Viganò was a young priest

working as a clerk

for the Deputy Secretary of State.

At 8 p.m. that night

the phone rang at the State Secretariat.

Viganò picked up.

On the other end, there was Father Panciroli

who was the head of the Vatican Press Office at the time.

Father Panciroli reported to Monsignor Viganò

that they had received an anonymous phone call

from a mysterious man who had dictated a message

in which they laid claim

to Emanuela Orlandi's kidnapping.

For those first few days

the investigation doesn't go anywhere.

They urge the family to be calm and relaxed.

Nothing to worry about.

But no, Emanuela has been kidnapped

and the Vatican gets to know it that night.

And above all

the first phone call is not to the Orlandi family.

It's to the Vatican Press Office.

Then Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped

with the clear intention of immediately blackmailing the Vatican.

An intention that they have kept hidden to this day.

This is the story

but it does not explain the big question.

If it was just for money, it would have been more convenient

to abduct a cardinal, an officer, or an important priest.

Why did they do it? Why abduct that girl and not a cardinal?

The only explanation for me and other people is that she had a secret.

A significant secret concerning the high ecclesiastic ranks of the Vatican

which could have led to a huge scandal.

What is this big secret, this blackmail still going on

for which Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped?

This is the question I have always asked myself.

Why did the Vatican do this? What is the secret they are hiding?

Why was Emanuela Orlandi kidnapped?

Thank you for coming.

I know this is the first time you are telling this story.

I imagine it's difficult for you.

Thank you for being brave.

You are speaking anonymously today.

Why anonymously?

Because...

I just feel safer.

I feel safer, and...

also I can talk better about her.

Emanuela and I met because we were at the same school.

We liked each other from the beginning,

so we became close friends from the start.

And we used to meet at school

and even outside school.

A nice girl.

The girl next door.

Both Emanuela and I were very reserved in our teenage years

because our parents were very strict and very Catholic.

However, we liked to mess around.

To go out secretly, even if our mothers did not want us to

and we'd go a little further afield, even out of the Vatican

to get out and about, maybe meet a boy.

What every other girl of that age, 13, 14, 15 years old should do.

The last time Emanuela and I met

was on a day when Emanuela called me.

It was the week before everything happened.

She said, "Listen.

We need to meet up. I have a secret to confess.

Something secret I want to tell you."

We met outside the Vatican but just under her home.

At first, I thought, "There's a boy."

But I realized straight away that it wasn't the nice secret I imagined.

From the way she looked, she looked stiff.

She looked scared.

Even ashamed maybe.

Then Emanuela told me

that while she was walking in the Vatican gardens...

someone...

someone really close to the Pope...

had been bothering her.

She used those words?

Yes.

What did she mean?

Bothering her...

He had been bothering her, I can't find a different word right now

to better express the meaning.

For me it was enough, I swear, just looking at her.

I understood what she meant.

-Did you know that was a sexual advance? -Absolutely yes.

The idea that something of that kind

could have happened to Emanuela

is something that, obviously

the Vatican would keep hidden at any cost.

Because now they talk a lot about pedophilia, but outside of the Vatican.

There has never been any accusation of pedophilia on Vatican soil.

If any abuse occurs inside the Vatican

it means that the highest ranks of the Church are involved.

And that is far more serious.

Who should she have spoken to? She told me, maybe to feel better.

I didn't do anything.

I don't know.

The feeling was a bit like embarrassment.

Who should she have spoken to?

She told me, maybe to free herself from that thing.

Who would have believed this story?

Two young girls who maybe hang around together

who may have invented it all.

I don't know.

But, really, the main feeling was

the shame of telling such a thing.

But she was very close to her family.

Wouldn't she share such a thing with someone in the family?

No, I don't think so.

I don't think so.

She wouldn't confide

something like that to her family.

Her father worked there, how could she do that?

They all used to live there. They would have had to move, at least.

I don't believe that she would ever have told something like this at home

to her sisters, to me, to my father.

She would have never said "A cardinal has harassed me."

I think it's important to tell this story now

because I didn't do this earlier.

And maybe if I had done it before

Something could have changed.

I don't know.

Forgive me.

Are you afraid that someone from the Vatican will take revenge?

Well, I mean

I'm always afraid, because unfortunately...

it's a bad world.

A world where many things shouldn't exist...

...A fifteen-year-old...

Do you think that the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela?

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

I am absolutely sure

that the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela Orlandi.

Every lead is linked to the Vatican.

I believe

based on the impressions I felt back then

that within the Vatican, there was someone

who had information they could share

but they didn't.

Absolutely yes.

In the Vatican many people know what happened to Emanuela Orlandi.

Of course yes, absolutely.

There has to be someone who knows the truth in the Vatican.

The Vatican certainly knows what happened to Emanuela, they always have known.

I think so, yes. That's what I think.

Time is the enemy of truth

and is the friend of those who hide the truth.

Many people who were involved have died.

Others are very old.

Therefore, the perfect strategy was

to let time fall, let time go.

There is no more time to waste.

The only thing I know for sure

is that the Vatican knows the truth.

They know what happened on that day.

Now, I'm asking them to tell that truth

because the moment has arrived, too many years have gone by.

My mother is 92 years old.

They have to do that for my mother, for Emanuela.

If Emanuela is dead

they have to tell us

so that my mother could at least bring a flower to her grave.

Otherwise, if Emanuela is alive, let us hug her again.

I'm just asking for this story to end.

National School Vittorio Emanuele II.

National School Vittorio Emanuele II.

I should be in the third year of high school next year.

I should be in the third year of high school next year.

My sister Emanuela has been missing for 37 years.

Subtitle translation by: Elisabetta Biagiola