The video details a dark chapter in history involving the Catholic Church's forced adoptions from the 1950s to the 1970s. During this period, thousands of children of unwed mothers, primarily from Belgium and Italy, were taken and adopted out, primarily to the United States, under deceptive circumstances. These children were often falsely labeled as orphans, as the Vatican exploited a broad definition of "orphan" to facilitate these international adoptions.

The narrative follows individuals like John Campitelli, who discovered that the story of his adoption was based on lies and deception. He unravelled a past where his mother had never intended to permanently give him up. Through personal accounts, experts, and uncovered documents, the video examines the emotional turmoil and years-long searches these adoptees faced when seeking their biological families.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. adoptee [əˈdɒpti] - (noun) - A person who has been adopted. - Synonyms: (adopted child, foster child, ward)

American adoptee John Campitelli was 28 years old when he was reunited with his Italian birth mother.

2. prodigal [ˈprɒdɪɡəl] - (adjective) - Spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. - Synonyms: (extravagant, wasteful, profligate)

She says, I don't care what month it is, I'm going to bake you a cake. We need to celebrate because our prodigal son has finally come home.

3. disgraced [dɪsˈɡreɪst] - (verb) - To have lost respect or esteem; to be dishonored. - Synonyms: (dishonored, shamed, humiliated)

Shunned and disgraced, Francesca handed her baby to the nuns immediately.

4. repackaged [ˌriːˈpækɪdʒd] - (verb) - To package something again or differently, often to create a new image or appeal. - Synonyms: (rebranded, remarketed, rewrapped)

Piero Davi was one of thousands of children born out of wedlock that the Vatican repackaged as orphans.

5. severing [ˈsevərɪŋ] - (verb) - To cut off or separate entirely. - Synonyms: (cutting, separating, detaching)

Lorino told us the program hinged on a consent form the mothers were supposed to sign, severing all rights to the child.

6. tremendous [trəˈmendəs] - (adjective) - Very great in amount, scale, or intensity. - Synonyms: (enormous, immense, colossal)

There were women who were trapped into this situation and tremendous pressure to relinquish their children.

7. psychological closure [ˌsaɪkəˈlɒdʒɪkəl ˈkləʊʒər] - (noun) - A state of emotional resolution or acceptance, allowing a person to move forward. - Synonyms: (emotional resolution, acceptance, peace)

The thinking I've been told was that it was an easy, easier psychological closure to tell a birth mother that her child had died than to let her know that her child had been given up for adoption.

8. swindle [ˈswɪndl] - (noun) - A fraudulent scheme or action to cheat someone out of money or possessions. - Synonyms: (fraud, scam, deception)

It was a swindle. She told us they stole a child that they wanted.

9. repatriated [ˌriːˈpeɪtrieɪtɪd] - (verb) - To return to one's own country, typically referring to a person. - Synonyms: (returned, sent home, reinstated)

Monsignor Landy, I beg that my children be repatriated.

10. linguistic construction [lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪk kənˈstrʌkʃən] - (noun) - A phrase or term deliberately created to convey a specific meaning or perspective. - Synonyms: (terminology, phraseology, expression)

But it was a linguistic construction.

Vatican sent Italian children born out of wedlock to America as orphans - new book uncovers program

During the 1950s, the Catholic Church in Belgium separated thousands of newborns from their unwed mothers and put them up for adoption, often without the mother's consent. The women were shamed into surrendering their babies by their families and a powerful church. Last month, Pope Francis apologized for those forced adoptions. But Belgians weren't the only victims. From 1950 to 1970, the Vatican sent 3,500 Italian children to America on something called an orphan visa. The trouble was, most were not orphans like their Belgian counterparts. They too were the children of unwed mothers. Many mothers later went searching for their children, only to discover they had been sent across an ocean. Today, thousands of American adoptees are still struggling to piece together their lost lives.

The story will continue in a moment. It was a day he'll never forget. American adoptee John Campitelli was 28 years old when he was reunited with his Italian birth mother. He'd been searching for her for more than a decade. A mother he'd been told had abandoned him. My mom said, you know, 28 years have gone by. I've never been able to bake a cake for you for your birthday. She says, I don't care what month it is, I'm going to bake you a cake. We need to celebrate because our prodigal son has finally come home.

John Campitelli was born piero Davi in 1963 in Italy. His mother, Francesca was unmarried and forced by her family to give him up. He was sent to a Catholic run institution for the children of unwed mothers. Shunned and disgraced, Francesca handed her baby to the nuns immediately. Her name was stripped from the birth records. With the stroke of a pen, Piero Davi became an orphan.

Campitelli showed us the church documents that changed his life. It says here they abandoned them since birth and their whereabouts are unknown. They knew damn well where my mom was. I mean, she showed her documents when she handed me over. So this is an outright lie. A lie John Campitelli has spent his life unraveling.

As soon as he was declared an orphan, he was eligible for adoption and a US visa. He says his mother told him she had no idea. She had every intention of coming back for him. She said, I never signed a paper anywhere saying that I was willing to give you up. She thought placing you in the institution was temporary. She thought that it would be her right to be able to get me back someday once she got her life together. She never signed you away? No, she said, I, because I couldn't keep you at that point in time because of the family situation. But I never consented to the adoption or to the fact that you would leave Italy and you'd be far from me for the rest of my life.

Piero Davi was one of thousands of children born out of wedlock that the Vatican repackaged as orphans. The Church arranged the visas, helped by a 1950 US law that broadened the definition of orphan to include a child with one parent, but one who couldn't provide care. With that leeway, the orphan program boomed. For Piero's mother and thousands like her, it was devastating to learn the child she'd entrusted to the church had disappeared.

It seems that many of these mothers had no idea that their children were being sent to the United States. Could they do anything about it? No, absolutely not. You can't send a baby to the United States and then tell the adoptive parents that the birth mother wants the child.

Author Maria Larino uncovered the Vatican's orphan program in her book the Price of Children. She pieced the story together from hundreds of documents in the Church's own archives in New York. Lorino told us the program hinged on a consent form the mothers were supposed to sign, severing all rights to the child. But Lorino told us doctors or lawyers sometimes signed the consent without telling the mother. Others were deliberately misled. There were women who were trapped into this situation and tremendous pressure to relinquish their children. There were women who were tricked, who signed forms they didn't understand. And in the worst cases, there were women who were told their child had died.

Told their child had died? Yes. What do you make of that? Yeah, it's so horrible. The thinking I've been told was that it was an easy, easier psychological closure to tell a birth mother that her child had died than to let her know that her child had been given up for adoption. So representatives of the Church were telling these mothers that their children had died, when in fact they had not and they had been sent to the United States. Yes. Lorino told us many more women were told they could get their children back. She found letters from distraught mothers pleading for their.

Now, these are letters that were found in the archives. That's correct. This is a letter to Reverend Landy. Monsignor Landy, I beg that my children be repatriated. If I cannot again see my children, I will shorten my life. I find myself deceived, and I do not even know how. Monsignor Landy was Andrew Landy, an American priest living in Rome who ran the orphan program. Landy's boss had the ear of the Pope. In 1951, Pope Pius XII personally saw the first children off. Thousands more would follow.

How could they be defined as orphans? I know if they still have a mother or in many cases, a father still alive. Yes. And to talk to the adopted children today, they get very angry to say, I'm not an orphan. You know, I spent years searching for my parents. But it was a linguistic construction. The church charged $475 per child, about $4,500 today. But Lorino told us the demand from eager American Catholics grew so fast that Monsignor Landy sent local priests to scour the countryside for more children. The correspondence shows that they traveled throughout Italy looking for cases for children to send. Literally looking for, yes, there is a babies born out of wedlock.

Yes, it actually turned into a machine. Yes, looking for babies to send to the United States. Right. John Campitelli told us he had a loving family in New York. But when he found out he was adopted, he says he became obsessed with finding his birth mother. There were few clues. Even his surname, Davi, was a dead end, invented by the state to cut all ties.

Finally, he persuaded an Italian newspaper to publish story. And then a breakthrough. Someone knew his mother. In 1991, he spoke to her for the first time. She said, are you Piero? Well, no, I'm John. Oh, no, I'm really Piero. Okay. I'm your son.

So you were nervous? I was really nervous because it's something that I always wanted to do, but when the moment comes, you're like, kind of tongue tied. Yeah, yeah, I was tongue tied. I finally get to talk to the person that actually gave birth to me, that held me, that had breastfed me for two or three days in the hospital. So I know that she loved me.

What was her voice like to you? It brought me to tears, I must admit. And we said we were never going to let go of each other from then on. Two months later, he was on a flight to Italy. We had exchanged photographs, but I said I didn't need a photograph because I saw that lady there in front of me and I said, that's my mom. She looks identical to me. And after 28 years, I could say that I just ran over to her and I embraced her and I said, mom, finally. And I kissed her. I said, mom, no one had to tell me who you were. I knew who you were. I just had to look at you.

Campitelli moved to Italy and learned Italian to speak to his birth family. But he told us that didn't undo the suffering the church had caused. I felt that my whole life was based on a lie. They told her that they would take care of me, and that was a lie. They got rid of me. They didn't take care of me. They cut all relationship that I could possibly have with my birth family, and they shipped me overseas. I became a package for them.

To this day, the church insists the orphan program was the only chance for a new life for these children. Lorino told us Monsignor Landy, who ran the program, died in 1999 without ever expressing any regrets. I think that he believed in the merit of the program, that they were bringing children to good Catholic homes and that these children would be raised well in the United States.

How does that explanation sit with you now? Terribly. I mean, because this is how women were treated, and this is why I think of them as disposable women. Disposable? Yeah. It's a terrible thing to give up your child. But nobody was thinking about these women then.

Bella familia, Mamma mia. American adoptee Mary Roloto travels often to Italy to see her birth family. She told us she had a happy life growing up in Ohio. But she says she longed for a large family only to find out she had one. It was 1992 when she first met Anna Maria, her birth mother.

The only thing I could do was stare and look at every inch of her for at least an hour. And you're dumbfounded. Not only does she look like me, but she acts like me. I act like her. We're the same weight. It's almost like this is my twin, but older. I know exactly what I'm gonna look like when I get older. So now I pay attention to my health. Mother and daughter say they're still learning about each other.

Rolodo told us it was years before she could ask the most painful question of all. Why was she given away? I just needed to know her story, her truth. Because no mother gives up their child so willingly, without grief.

Do you now understand why she gave you up? Because she didn't have a piece of bread. She said to give us poverty. She didn't have clothes for us. She was in a desperate situation, you know? So instead of the Church helping her maintain a house and feed her children, instead they took her children. Ana Maria is now 83. She agreed to speak with us if we withheld her last name.

Even decades later, the stigma of having children out of wedlock remains. She told us about her other child, Christian who was sent to a church run institution when she became ill. But when she went to pick him up, she says the nuns told her he had died. I went into depression. Anna Maria told us. I searched for him everywhere. How did he die? Where was he buried? Nobody could tell me.

Did you believe that your son was dead? Something inside me didn't feel right, But I could do nothing about it. Ciao, Christian. But Christian had not died. He told us he learned the truth about his mother at age 40. Ana Maria says the church had put him up for adoption without telling her. It was a swindle. She told us they stole a child that they wanted.

So what was it like for you when you found that Christian was, in fact, alive? I have no words, she told us. There were lots of tears and hugs. The Vatican's orphan program ended in 1970, but the fallout continues, rippling across generations. Mary Roloto told us she never should have been sent to America. I think the church convinced her that it was the best thing for her. And so instead of helping her, it was better for them to make money selling babies.

That's all I can think of, you know? So am I angry at the church? Hell, yeah, I am. I would have a different life, too. And while it might have been difficult, I still would have survived it without this kind of grief that I have inside of me now.

Inspiration, Politics, Global, Adoption, Vatican, Family Reunion, 60 Minutes