Parliamentary inquest into ‘Vatican Girl’ mystery moves forward as pope acknowledges family’s pain

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Italy’s Parliament is poised to open a bicameral commission of inquiry into the 1883 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee. If that happens, it would be the third new investigation launched since Emanuela Orlandi vanished on the streets of Rome. A Senate committee on Tuesday unanimously approved the inquest, and full Senate approval is now expected. Separately, Vatican and Rome prosecutors both recently reopened their investigations. Orlandi vanished 40 years ago last week after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson.  Theories over the years have linked her disappearance at age 15 to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II to the criminal underworld