EXCLUSIVE: The Most Sickening Skeleton In Vatican's Closet Exposed — With Killer Church Sex Slave Ring Feared to Have Imprisoned Kids in DUNGEONS

A Josef Fritzl-style Vatican pedophile ring may be on the verge of being exposed years after the discovery of bones under a church embassy in Rome, RadarOnline.com can sensationally reveal.

The remains are thought to have belonged to a man aged in his 30s – which we can reveal has sparked fresh fears he was kidnaped in his teens and imprisoned for years by church abusers, just like the daughter of incest cellar rapist Fritzl.

It is believed he may be one of scores of children kept in dungeons by pedophile holy men, who then murdered them when they reached adulthood and no longer satisfied their craving for pre-pubescent sex slaves.

Investigators who discovered the remains initially believed they belonged to missing teenagers Mirella Gregori or Emanuela Orlandi, both 15, who vanished in 1983.

Emanuela was the daughter of a Vatican employee and cops have been probing her vanishing for the last 35 years.

It later emerged after carbon testing on the bones they date back to at least 1964 and are male.

The almost complete skeleton and other bone fragments were unearthed during work on an annex to the Holy See’s Apostolic Nunciature compound near Rome’s famous Villa Borghese museum.

A source close to the investigation told RadarOnline.com: "It was horrific enough to think these remains belonged to the two missing teenage girls.

"But after it emerged they belonged to an adult male has prompted fears he was held captive for years underground and systematically abused – and kept alive for that sole purpose – by Vatican officials.

"If the male can be identified and linked to church workers, it could finally expose the fact the Vatican shielded a pedophile ring, which is something that has been feared to have existed for decades.

"It really is like one of the plots from a trashy Dan Brown book."

The pedophile ring warning will pile pressure on the new Pope Leo XIV – the first U.S. pontiff.

We have already revealed how victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests have expressed their "concern" with the newly elected Pope.

Our report told how a group dedicated to the abused accused the new pontiff of "looking the other way" when it came to religious leaders in his Chicago-home churches.

Despite the remains found at the Vatican embassy being identified as those of an adult male, there are still fears missing teens Mirella Gregori and Emanuela Orlandi were victims of church child abusers.

During a visit to Emanuela Orlandi’s family home, the late Pope John Paul II told her relatives he believed her kidnap to be a case of international terrorism – sparking theories he was covering up a Vatican pedophile ring.

Now dead Gabriele Amorth – formerly chief exorcist for the Vatican – told an Italian newspaper he believed Emanuela was a victim of a Vatican-connected circle that organized orgies at which young girls were abused.

The latest theories about the skeleton in the Vatican’s closet heaps scandal on the Catholic church, still reeling from a string of sex scandals. They have included a 900-page grand jury report that detailed how hundreds of trusted priests had raped, beaten and abused vulnerable children in Pennsylvania alone.

It said: "The men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all."

The report caused catastrophic fallout for the Catholic church across the US, with at least 13 states launching investigations of their own into the conduct of their priests, prompting resignations and congregations deserting pews.