John L. Allen Jr.
For Italians, disappearance of ‘Vatican girl’ remains ‘mother of all mysteries’
Workers inspect an ossuary at the Teutonic Cemetery at the Vatican in this July 20, 2019, file photo. The ossuary was inspected in the hope of finding the missing remains of a German princess and duchess and possibly the remains of Emanuela Orlandi, who disappeared in 1983. The Vatican prosecutor has opened a new investigation into the disappearance 40 years ago of Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media
To judge by sensationalist newspaper headlines and breathless social media posts, one might assume that the open conflict in Catholicism unleashed by the death of Pope Benedict XVI and fanned by a series of tell-all revelations from his longtime aide, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, would be the talk of the town in Rome — which, after…