07/12/2026: The Vatican's Orphans, Sealand, Christopher Nolan

0:07Bella Familia, Mamma Mia.

0:09Bill Whitaker:Mary Rolato grew up in Ohio longing for a large family, only to find out that she had one. Bella Familia. In Italy. It was years before she could ask her birth mother the most painful question of all. Why was she given away? 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. So am I angry at the church? Hell yeah.

0:38Enter some countries, you arrive in style. Here, you arrive in what's basically a backyard swing hoisted by a crank 60 feet above the North Sea. And if you're wondering about the safety regulations, yeah, us too. Then again, when you are a sovereign nation, you, by definition, set your own rules. That's a hell of a way to get into a country. The only way to travel. Welcome to Sealand, a monarchy that declared its independence in 1967. Just wait till you hear this story. I feel a real responsibility to try and get as much on screen for the audience as possible. Action! Christopher Nolan is one of the great directors of our time.

1:24Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, Interstellar, and next, The Odyssey. I mean, it was the hardest movie I've ever done, by far. I mean, not even close. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.

1:55Bill Whitaker: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. In 2024, 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.

2:44Bill Whitaker:As we first reported in 2024, thousands of American adoptees are still struggling to piece together their lost lives. 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.

3:29Bill Whitaker: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 have been in the 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.

4:08Bill Whitaker:A lie John Campitelli has spent his life unraveling. As soon as he was declared an orphan, he was eligible for adoption and a U.S. 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 placed you 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.

4:55Bill Whitaker: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 U.S. 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.

5:37You can't send a baby to the United States and then tell the adoptive parents that the birth mother wants the child.

5:44Bill Whitaker:Author Maria Lerino 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. Loreno told us the program hinged on a consent form the mothers were supposed to sign severing all rights to the child. But Loreno 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.

6:25And in the worst cases, there were women who were told their child had died.

6:30Bill Whitaker: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 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. Loreno told us many more women were told they could get their children back. She found letters from distraught mothers pleading for their return. Now these are letters that were found in the archives?

7:16That'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.

7:30Bill Whitaker: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 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 Lerino told us the demand from eager American Catholics grew so fast that Monsignor Landy sent local priests to scour the countryside for more children.

8:25The correspondence shows that they traveled throughout Italy looking for cases for children to send. Literally looking for babies born out of wedlock.

8:36Bill Whitaker: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 his story. And then, a breakthrough. Someone knew his mother. In 1991, he spoke to her for the first time. She said, all right, are you Piero? I said, well, no, I'm John. Oh, no, I'm really Piero.

9:22Okay, I'm your son. So you were nervous, I told you. I was really nervous, because it's something that I always wanted to do, but when the moment comes, you're like...

9:31Bill Whitaker: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, you know, I just ran over to her and I embraced her and I said, Mom, finally, I kissed her.

10:12I said, Mom, no one had to tell me who you were. I knew who you were. I just had to look at you.

10:18Bill Whitaker: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. Lerino told us Monsignor Landy, who ran the program, died in 1999 without ever expressing any regrets.

11:01I think that But 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.

11:13Bill Whitaker: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 Relato 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.

12:00And 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 going to look like when I get older. So now I pay attention to my health.

12:16Bill Whitaker:Mother and daughter say they're still learning about each other. Rolato 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. Anna Maria is now 83.

13:04Bill Whitaker: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.

13:31Bill Whitaker:I went into depression, Ana 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. 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 the 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.

14:28Bill Whitaker:The Vatican's orphan program ended in 1970, but the fallout continues, rippling across generations. Mary Rolato 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. 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.

15:09Hey, it's Jen Hatmaker. Here's what I've learned in midlife. Joy isn't the reward you earn after all the work is done. Joy is the work. That's what this new series on For the Love is all about. The sacred yes. It's choosing delight, rest, and pleasure on purpose. Because saying yes to yourself, that's the thing that finally lets you fill your table with everybody else. Come find Your Sacred Yes with me. Follow and listen to For the Love wherever you get your podcasts.

15:44Okay, name that country. It's planted opposite Europe, sitting proudly on the other side of the North Sea. It's a monarchy that features its own currency, postage stamps, constitution, national anthem, love of tea, and a pair of handsome princes born two years apart. We speak of Sealand. A crumb of real estate off the English coast that declared its independence in 1967, Sealand has a full-time population of one. It has a landmass the size of roughly two tennis courts. Its leading export might be the national mythology, a history of piracy, coups, countercoups, rogues, and offshore internet schemes.

16:22It may make tiny Liechtenstein look like China by comparison, But as we found out in 2023, by rights, Sealand is a sovereign nation. Join us as we compile some notes from a truly small island. We can see Sealand over there, by the way, now. You see that? Oh, there she is. Yeah, yeah. On a starboard bow. Behold, the world's smallest state. It's a micronation in the extreme, a principality which sits, or stands, only seven miles off the coast of England. Its self-described reigning monarch is this guy, Prince Michael Bates. Here we are. Yeah. A platform and a couple of concrete husks. Yeah. This is a state.

17:08Yeah. Enter some countries, you arrive in style. Here, you arrive in what's basically a backyard swing hoisted by a crank 60 feet above the North Sea. And if you're wondering about the safety regulations, yeah, us too. Then again, when you are a sovereign nation, you, by definition, set your own rules. That's a hell of a way to get into a country. The only way to travel. On the plus side, there's no long line at the arrivals hall. I'm following you to passport control. Mike Barrington fills various roles and positions on Sealand. Right now, it's immigration and customs. He also happens to be the only permanent resident.

17:50How you all, sir? So now I'm official. You all? Welcome to Sealand. It wasn't always named Sealand, and it was never intended to be a country. Originally called His Majesty's Ruffs Tower, it was a hastily constructed nautical fort, one of several the British set up in the North Sea during World War II. Fire! Equipped with anti-aircraft artillery, these forts were designed to prevent German bombing raids on London. During the war, more than 100 Royal Marines were crammed into these towers for months on end. Descending the seven-story towers, it feels and smells like a cross between a treehouse and a diesel-soaked submarine.

18:37First up, the first-class bedroom suite. It's a nice one. Nice TV. Our claustrophobic tour continued downward. We're underwater at this point. So we've still got a couple floors to go. You hear ships going past. You hear the propellers going around. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Like many countries, there's a national cathedral. You have freedom of worship in Sealand. I think there's even the Koran here somewhere. On the bottom floor, the jail. Two days in the brig. Bread and mortar. I have to look at the Sealand Constitution and see what my rights are. Very limited. If you're wondering by now how this concrete island constitutes a country, Stick with us here.

19:21This is Radio Caroline on 199. Back in the 1960s, these same waters played host to the burgeoning, unlicensed commercial radio business that operated on ships and old fords, what the British government called pirate radio. It was the time of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks. But the stodgy BBC, which had a monopoly on broadcasting in Britain, gave the rock bands just an hour of airtime a week.

19:54The younger set in Britain, millions of them, tuned their radio knobs to the pirate stations. In 1965, Prince Michael's father, Roy Bates, an enterprising, swashbuckling World War II veteran, commandeered a fort where another pirate station operated. It was the Wild West on the North Sea. The DJs may not be highly experienced, but they certainly pull their weight. Bates set up Britain's first 24-hour outfit. He called it Radio Essex. You're in tune with Radio Essex broadcasting on 222 meters. We're doing a job that's needed. The public wants us to do the job. So do businesses. And I think while this demand is here, we'll remain in business.

20:35But not for long. The British government enacted a new law rendering all pirate radio stations illegal. Bates was forced to shut down. But true to his nature, he was something other than scared off. He just would not back down. Form of surrender, if he had said, you know what, I'm out? He wouldn't know that word, surrender. I mean, no. Far from surrendering, Bates seized another fort, Ruff's Tower, which was outside UK territorial waters. Instead of restarting Radio Essex, he did something bolder still. On September 2nd, 1967, he declared it an independent state. Sealand, and declared himself its prince.

21:17It was his wife Joan's birthday. And it was, of course, a hugely romantic gesture to make my mother a princess. In addition to taking you out to dinner, I'm going to make you a princess. He didn't take her out to dinner, but he just made her a princess, yeah. Prince Roy and Princess Joan, along with their two children, Michael and Penny, set up home on Sealand. The sheer novelty of their lifestyle was a constant source of amusement on the mainland. This newsreel is from 1969. The start of another day, even for the new royals, is no different than for millions of others, the request for a common cuppa.

21:53Mrs Bates, how is it possible to keep looking glamorous in conditions like these? It's no more difficult than anywhere else in the world. We're quite comfortable here. We have all the things I want. Look. Make-ups, brushes and things. At age 16, Penny was less convinced. It was freezing cold, and it had no electricity. To flush the toilet, you'd have to chuck a bucket over the side, drop it down about 80 feet, pull it up, and flush the toilet. That was your toilet. Yes. The Bates family had big ambitions to turn Sealand into a tax haven, a luxury island and casino. And they went all in on the trappings of statehood, fashioning a flag, stamps, currency, an anthem, even a national motto, Imare Libertas.

22:39From the sea, freedom.