VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis offered prayers on Sunday for the family of a teenager who went missing 40 years ago this week, an intervention her brother hailed as a sign the Vatican was finally engaging seriously with its most famous cold case.

Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, was last seen leaving a music class in Rome on June 22, 1983.

Decades of speculation followed over what happened to her, with suggestions that mobsters, the secret services or a Vatican conspiracy were to blame — theories which sparked a hit Netflix series.

After his weekly Angelus prayer at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he wanted to use the anniversary “to once again express my closeness to the family, above all her mother, and assure them of my prayers”.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2023