Missing Girl’s Brother Asks Francis for Tape Recordings of Negotiations with Kidnappers

By Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican Insider
June 17, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/inquiries-and-interviews/detail/articolo/orlandi-papa-pope-el-papa-25719/

Pietro Orlandi With Pope Francis

A torchlight procession is to be held in memory of Vatican teen Emanuela Orlandi who went missing 30 years ago, in an attempt to shed light on her disappearance

A procession to break the long silence and cast light on the “coincidences” that remain unexplained. It will begin in St. Apollinare Square and end in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. The itinerary chosen for the procession that will take place on 22 June to commemorate the mysterious disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi – the daughter of a Vatican employee – thirty years ago, is a symbolic one. It traces the route the missing girl used to take to get home, a route she never took again, a route Emanuela’s brother, Pietro Orlandi wants to take once more to shed light on the truth, in his search for justice. “We are asking Pope Francis to join us in our moment of prayer in St. Peter’s Square and to hand the tape recordings of the negotiations that went on between the Holy See and the kidnappers, over to the courts,” Pietro Orlandi told Vatican Insider.

Orlandi wants answers to one aspect of the case in particular. Marco Fassoni Accetti was the key witness in the disappearance, who helped find the flute Emanuela allegedly had with her at the time. Accetti’s confessor at the San Giuseppe De Merode College in Rome was Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, currently the Vice Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church and secretary of Agostino Casaroli (Vatican Secretary of State) at the time of my sister’s disappearance, used to take the calls on a phone line coded 158,” Pietro Orlandi said. On 17 July 1983, a tape was found containing a recording of the Vatican and the kidnappers negotiating a swap: the girl, in exchange for Wojtyla’s attacker, Ali Agca and the setting up of a direct phone line to the Vatican Secretary of State, Casaroli. A girl could be heard moaning in the background, pleading for help and saying she did not feel well.

Some days later, the caller - nicknamed “The American” because of his strong American accent – rang again asking Emanuela’s uncle to make the message recorded on the tape public and ask Cardinal Casaroli for information about a previous conversation. The American made 16 calls in total, all of them from public pay phones. Despite the various demands made and his claims of possessing proof, the man (who was never traced) did not provide clues that led anywhere.

Now the Orlandi family is asking Pope Francis to hand all tape recordings of the conversations over to the courts. The judges who were examining the case were never given the tapes. “Although 30 years have gone by, the pain is just as strong as it was on the day of her disappearance, on 22 June 1983,” Pietro Orlandi said. “Unfortunately, 30 years on, we are still in the dark about what happened that evening, but we are not giving up, we are moving forward and thanks to the support shown by ordinary people, we as a family feel even more motivated to go on,” he added. Pietro says behind his sister’s disappearance “lies something else, something big, 30 years of omissions and diversions.” “On 22 June we will meet at 19:30 in St. Apollinare Square, where Emanuela was last seen and we will walk through the streets she usually took to get home, right up until St. Peter’s Square, where we will gather peacefully with our torches, for a moment of prayer and reflection. It will be a vigil to ask for some answers.”

I hope Pope Francis will join us there; it would be a courageous gesture on his part.” Pietro Orlandi feels great bitterness when he recalls the day of his sister’s disappearance: “We had an argument that day because she wanted me to go with her but I was busy. She left, slamming the door. From that day on I keep on thinking what if I’d gone with her.” The number of people joining the procession, from across Italy, keeps on rising and over 155.000 people have signed the petition launched in recent months. These gestures of solidarity are helping the Orlandi family to continue in their search for the truth.

The Orlandi’s believe the tape recordings “contain unequivocal evidence that would lead to those responsible for the kidnapping,” as demonstrated by the eight appeals John Paul II sent out at his Sunday Angelus’. “I met Francis in St. Martha’s House shortly after his election and he said those horrible words: “Emanuela’s in heaven.” Then I contacted his secretary Fr. Alfred four times to fix a meeting with Francis, but I still haven’t received a reply,” Pietro Orlandi said. “My sister’s disappearance is not a minor scandal compared to those surrounding the Holy See’s finances. This is not just a private family tragedy. A Vatican citizen has been kidnapped.”

Marco Fassoni Accetti was questioned about a dozen times by judges and I also spoke to him. I was upset when he told me he didn’t want to name the names of the people involved in the kidnapping, saying he didn’t want to be a spy. Fassoni Accetti’s spiritual guide in his De Merode College days, was Archbishop Celata, the man who tool the American’s calls on the special hotline and passed them on to Cardinal Casaroli. We expect answers from Francis.”