Startling new theory emerges in one of Italy’s greatest unsolved mysteries

The childhood friend says that in the days before Emanuela Orlandi disappeared she said that she was molested by 'someone close to the Pope' 

A teenage girl whose disappearance from the streets of Rome ranks as one of Italy’s greatest unsolved mysteries was sexually assaulted by a senior Holy See figure, it has been claimed, in a chilling new twist to the long-running mystery.

The daughter of a Vatican office clerk whose family lived inside the tiny city state, Emanuela Orlandi was 15 when she vanished as she returned from a flute lesson in the capital in 1983. She has not been seen since.

Theories about the reasons for her disappearance have revolved around murky claims of Cold War skulduggery, sex trafficking, banking scandals, mafia vendettas and negotiations over the release of a Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II.

Now a Netflix series called Vatican Girl, which will be released on Oct 20, has come up with a startling new theory about what happened to the schoolgirl.

A woman who was a childhood friend says that in the days before the teenager disappeared, she was sexually molested within the walls of the Vatican by “someone close to the Pope”, who at the time was John Paul II.

Knowing that she harboured this explosive secret, a criminal organisation called the Magliana Gang kidnapped her as a means of putting pressure on the Vatican to pay back money they had borrowed to covertly fund Solidarity, the trade union that was fighting communism in the Pope’s native Poland, it is claimed.

The Vatican’s Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, had been accused of sending money to Solidarity.

The woman, whose face is obscured in the documentary, said that Emanuela told her she had “a secret to confess” in a conversation they had about a week before her disappearance.

Emanuela said that as she was strolling through the grounds of the Vatican, where she lived with her family in a grace and favour apartment, she had been “bothered” by a “person very close to the Pope”.

Asked whether the harassment was sexual, the friend told Netflix: “Absolutely, yes.”

Emanuela was “scared, even ashamed”, the friend, now middle-aged, said.

She broke down in tears as she said she had never divulged the information before. Asked if she was afraid of the consequences, she replied: “I have always been afraid. It’s a terrible world.”

Mark Lewis, the Emmy award-winning director of the Netflix series, told The Telegraph.“I think she didn’t feel comfortable coming forward before because she feels the weight of the Church and of her own Catholic faith.