Pope Francis defends St. John Paul II against a recent accusation by Pietro Orlandi, brother of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican citizen who went missing 40 years ago, reports Catholic News Agency.
In April 11 statement on the Italian television program Di Martedi, Pietro Orlandi alleged Pope John Paul II secretly visited women at night. He however did not disclose the source of the rumor
While speaking to the public on Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis recalled John Paul II, the former Catholic head, who established in 2000 “Divine Mercy Sunday.” Pope Francis, defending the former Pontiff, said the allegation is “unfounded and offensive.”
“Certain that I interpret the feelings of the faithful throughout the world, I address a grateful thought to be a memory of St. John Paul II, at this time the object of unfounded and offensive conjectures, ” he said.
John Paul’s personal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz noted the allegation to be “vile insinuations” and “false from beginning to end.”
Emmanuel Orlandi has been missing since June 22, 1983. On her family’s request, the Vatican prosecutor opened a file in January for further investigation of her disappearance.
The prosecutor for the Vatican City State said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, Pope Francis allowed him “maximum freedom of action to investigate [Orlandi’s Case] on a broad scale without conditions of any kind. “Pope Francis tenaciously pursues the desire for absolute transparency, the search for the truth and purification.”
For 40 years, Pietro Orlandi has been eager to get answers to his sister’s disappearance. He met for eight hours on April 11 with the Vatican’s chief prosecutor. His meeting according to the Vatican was to “make his own statements and to offer any information in his possession to the file opened by the Vatican promoter of justice in January.”