Said Charles Baudelaire and Kevin Spacey repeated in The usual suspects to end the film directed by Bryan Singer: “The biggest trick the devil ever did was to convince the world that he doesn’t exist and thus disappear.” Some may assume that it is hiding in the least expected place and those ideas are not contemporary. The Vatican’s historical tribulations seem to have had something of the devilish about them. Bribes, crimes, fathers, queens asking for mercy so as not to be beheaded, famous excommunications (like Luther’s), exorcisms indoors, scams and disappearances.
One event in particular has kept the city-state in the middle of Rome on its toes for 40 years. On June 22, 1983, 14-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican official whose family has worked for the Holy See since 1920, left her home and crossed the Porta Sant’Anna, which separates the citadel of Rome from the land of the Pope to reach the church Sant’Apollinaire, crossing the Tevere, very close to piazza Navona, for his music class.
In the middle of the afternoon, he made a call to his house. She didn’t comment on anything in particular, except that an unknown man had approached her and suggested that he distribute flyers as an advertisement for a certain amount of money. Since his parents were not there, his sister Federica warned him that the amount offered was very high. She advised that when leaving school, the aforementioned would give her the flyers and that she would take them to her house. She was to meet her sister Cristina della later, at 7:15 pm, just across the Vittorio Emanuele II bridge.
Since he was not in the place at that time, Cristina decided to shorten the path and go to meet him. She arrived at school at 7:20. Emanuela had disappeared. A colleague was the last to see her. Rafaela Monzi said that she had left her at the bus stop at 7:10 a.m. that she took when she did not want to walk. In less than a quarter of an hour the story that still has no solution had been woven.
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The case remains unresolved. It had some unexpected and striking edges: from John Paul II in one of his Wednesday homilies personally asking the captors to release her to an alleged involvement of the KGB, going through the Turkish nationalist movement of the Gray Wolves of which the attacker of the pope himself, Ali Agca; or the intention to put pressure on the Vatican, to which the Banda della Magliana had lent money destined for the Polish union Solidarnosc.
In the decades that have passed, there have been thousands of anonymous calls, a couple of supposed secret agents remorseful; until the opening of the tombs of princesses Sofía von Hohenlohe and Carlotta Federica of Mecklenburg, who died in 1836 and 1840, respectively, located in the Teutonic cemetery, within the walls of the Vatican, a fact that took place in 2019, barely a year after the lawyer Laura Sgrò will take the case at the request of Emanuela’s brothers.
Part of Vatileaks II
The Italian lawyer is a specialist in litigation against the Vatican. She, the owner of intense brown hair and a strong presence of a classic Italian film actress, in addition to having an office in Rome, she has two other quite unconnected ones: Beirut and Buenos Aires (“for normal litigation of any law firm”). She is famous for carrying out part of the Vatileaks II plot, she is considered one of the 100 most influential people in Italy by the traditional magazine survey Forbes.
She took over the Orlandi case and since then she has cleared the wheat from the chaff. She read 40 years of records in one weekend. She reconstructed the thread of the story from beginning to end. She dismissed facts that clouded the case. She alerted dozens of clues that were not considered.
He obtained the testimony of a former schoolmate who recounted a version of an alleged sexual abuse by a cardinal close to the then Pope John Paul II and managed to link the disappearance of a second young woman in a situation similar to that of Emanuela, Mirella Gregori, who was 15 years and disappeared on May 7, 1983, after answering a phone call at his home, from an alleged partner named Alessandro. Mirella told her mother that she was leaving and coming back in 10 minutes. It was never again heard from her.
Mine was a very beautiful childhood… My parents have always watched over me and my siblings, but from a distance, to make us grow and mature…
“I was born in Milazzo,” says the lawyer in an exclusive interview for The Nation Magazine—, a town of about 60,000 inhabitants, in Sicily. Mine was a very beautiful childhood… My parents have always watched over me and my siblings, but from a distance, to make us grow and mature… I had a very special relationship with my father, who passed away two years ago, a loss irreparable. It has been my greatest support. He lived for 16 years in Brazil. Thanks to him I began to love and travel through South America”.
How was your love for the law born?
“I also inherited that from my father. He would have liked to be a lawyer, but my grandfather was more interested in buying land than educating his children. When I had to enroll in the university, I asked him if he would have preferred a daughter who was a doctor or a lawyer, he replied: ‘I prefer that you be a good doctor or a good lawyer.’ Whatever he did, dad would have supported me, but he had to do it with commitment, passion and respect.
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She had already dealt with the protection of public figures in Italy when Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui appointed her as her defense lawyer in the second Vatileaks, in 2015. Chaouqui, the daughter of a Moroccan and an Italian, and married to a computer specialist, relationship expert public, she was accused of leaking the documents together with the priest Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda.
“It was a process with worldwide media impact”, recalls Sgrò. He later assumed the defense of some cases of pedophilia involving prelates, both in the Vatican and in Italy. “The protection of fragile and defenseless people has always been close to my heart,” he says.
The case of Emanuela Orlandi brought her back to the international scene, as did having assumed the defense of Muguette Baudat, mother of the young Pontifical Swiss Guard Cédric Tornay who on May 4, 1998 was found lifeless in the Vatican together with the commander of the Guard, Alois Estermann, and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero.
Whatever I did, Dad would have supported me, but I had to do it with commitment, passion and respect.
The investigation was quickly closed. The Vatican Judiciary determined that Cédric had killed the commander and his wife, and then committed suicide. But Cédric’s mother, doubting the investigations, has been fighting for years to reopen the case.
Sgró’s recent book blood in the vatican it is history in search of the truth in that case. “In 2019 I assumed the defense of Tornay’s mother. After 23 years of archiving, I finally had access to the preliminary investigation file and the book tells what I discovered. The mother has never seen the file. She has never seen the photos of the crime scene, she has never been able to consult the expert reports, in which she did not participate. The investigations were carried out by the Vatican investigators in a superficial and hasty manner, perhaps through carelessness and inexperience, perhaps deliberately.
On the pages is also my relationship with Muguette, what we lived together, the difficulties I had to go through. And there is also the complaint that I presented to the UN against the Holy See, for the violation of my human rights. In fact, the Vatican magistrates forced me to see the file in the presence of two gendarmes, I was unable to extract a copy. I have been prevented from practicing my profession, the right to defense of a mother who has been given the truth about a son who committed suicide has been violated.”
How did you come to specialize in litigating with the Vatican?
By a series of coincidences. In fact, I wanted to move to New York and specialize in international law. Instead, I moved to Rome, did a second degree and a Ph.D. in Canon Law, and finally obtained the qualifications that allow me to practice at the Tribunal of the Roman Rota and the Vatican Court of Appeal.
What are the difficulties in litigating there?
They are multiple. Very outdated codes apply. They are the ones that were in use in Italy when the Papal State was established in 1929. Another problem is that both the promoters of justice and the judges are appointed by the Holy Father. This raises the question of the independence of the magistrates, who also do not carry out their activities full time. Some, in fact, are academics and lawyers in Italy. This could also lead to conflicts of interest that are not easily overcome, as well as unnecessary delays.
Have you felt fear?
“Repeatedly. I received threats during Vatileaks and more since I represent the Orlandi family. Once I had the clear feeling that someone had broken into my house when I was not there, several times I was aware that I was being followed. I have not changed my way of life nor do I intend to. But I’m more cautious.”
Very outdated codes apply. They are those that were in use in Italy when the Papal State was established in 1929
Regarding the Vatileaks II, he recalls: “It was a very intense trial, actually there were two: one inside the room and another outside, where everything that could not be said in the room was said. Only the tip of the iceberg was examined in court. The world watched what was happening in the Vatican through the keyhole.”
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Chaouqui asked the Pope to free her from the pontifical secrecy to which she was bound as commissioner of Cosea, the commission for the study and orientation of the economic-administrative structure of the Holy See. The pontiff never responded. “From a professional point of view, it was an extraordinary experience,” says Sgrò. It was like living in a matryoshka, not knowing which of all the dolls she was in. There was always something bigger looming over us. The prosecution was dropped. My client was acquitted of the most serious charges, she received a very light sentence for the mere fact of contributing to disclosure, whose sentence was suspended ”. For Sgrò she had to be fully acquitted.
The case of Emanuela Orlandi is open to this day. What is the reading of it with what is known to date?
“The case is more open than ever. Emanuela’s disappearance is a black hole in the history of Italy. The Vatican is involved through the attack on the Pope, the fall of the Ambrosiano bank and its illegal activities, the murder of Calvi, the story of the Magliana gang, the funding of Solidarity to fight against communism in Eastern Europe. And perhaps, it is precisely for this reason that there are forces that are determined not to overcome it.
According to the lawyer, in the Emanuela case it is necessary to “investigate pedophilia within the walls of the Vatican” and follow the trail of the Magliana gang. “Our idea is that the Vatican had a problem and summoned the Magliana to solve it. It is a hypothesis compatible with the accounts of those years”.
Are you catholic?
Yes, I am, although my relationship with God is quite complicated at the moment.
Do you fear God?
No. Because the God I believe in is good, merciful, welcoming and forgiving. And I’m not even afraid of it because, let me say it smugly, I think I’m right.
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FLAVIA TOMAELLO
THE NATION (ARGENTINA) – GDA
On Twitter: @LANACION
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