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	Vatican Calls Claims Linking U.S. Prelate to Kidnapping 'Defamatory' By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service June 24, 2008 http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0803344.htm VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican called recent accusations linking the late U.S. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus to an Italian girl's disappearance "defamatory (and) without foundation." The allegations based on testimony revealed recently by Italian media have caused pain to the girl's family and show a lack of "respect and humanity toward people who have already suffered so much," said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican press office, in a June 24 statement. Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican City resident and the daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared in Rome June 22, 1983, when she was 15 years old. Her disappearance already had been linked to a Rome-based criminal gang, but in late June the gang leader's former girlfriend told prosecutors that Archbishop Marcinkus had ordered the kidnapping as part of a "power game" and "to send a message to someone" higher up. The Vatican statement said the accusations came at a time -- after the archbishop's death -- when it would be impossible for him to defend himself. The statement expressed surprise that the media would publish the "confidential information" of an informant's testimony which had not been verified and was of "extremely dubious worth." It said the Vatican did not want to interfere with Italian investigations, but it did want to express its "deep regret and admonishment" for the way journalistic ethics gave way in this case to tabloid sensationalism. Archbishop Marcinkus, who died in the U.S. in 2006, served as president of the Vatican bank from 1971 to 1989. During that time, the bank was involved in the 1982 fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's largest private bank. While the Vatican and Archbishop Marcinkus always maintained they had done nothing wrong, the Vatican bank made what it called a $240 million "goodwill payment" to Banco Ambrosiano's former creditors in 1984.
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