VATICAN UNEARTHS EMPTY TOMBS, FINDS BONES ELSEWHERE

VATICAN UNEARTHS EMPTY TOMBS, FINDS BONES ELSEWHERE

VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - After finding two empty tombs, the Vatican has now found two sets of bones in the search for a missing person.

Emanuela Orlandi was 15 years old when she went missing in central Rome in the summer of 1983. Her father, Ercole Orlandi, was a lay official at the Vatican. She remains missing to this day.

In March, a lawyer for the Orlandi family received an anonymous letter hinting that Emanuela's remains are in the Teutonic Cemetery — a small graveyard on the grounds of Vatican City.

Vatican officials announced they would open a pair of tombs in the Teutonic Cemetery, where German and Austrian clergy and religious have been buried for centuries. But when the tombs were opened on July 11, no human remains were found. Emanuela's brother, Pietro, seemed disappointed at the discovery, telling CNN, "I could have expected everything — except empty graves."

Then, two days later on Saturday, officials announced that two ossuaries were found a few yards away. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti announced that two sets of human bones were found in holes carved inside a large stone covered by a stone slab inside the Teutonic College.

Gisotti said the area was immediately sealed off and will be opened to forensic investigators on July 20.

It is possible that these bones are simply the remains of the two 19th-century princesses whose tombs were found empty — Carlotta Frederica of Mecklenburg and Sophie von Hohenlohe. Officials suspect the noblewomen's remains were moved during expansion work done at the Teutonic College in the 1960s and 1970s.