Former Vatican envoy accuses Pope Francis of hiding sexual abuse allegations involving disgraced US cardinal
WASHINGTON - In a remarkable and scathing recrimination, the Vatican's former ambassador to Washington accused Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday of knowingly hiding sexual abuse allegations involving a now-disgraced American cardinal, further convulsing a church in crisis.
The former envoy's 11-page broadside rocked the Roman Catholic world as Francis finished a two-day visit to Ireland, where he faced demonstrations and begged forgiveness in the once-fervently Catholic country for the "scandal and betrayal" done by decades of clerical sex abuse, and an elaborate cover-up by church authorities.
In his letter, Archbishop Cardinal Carlo Vigano, who was papal nuncio, or ambassador, in Washington from 2011 to 2016, accused Francis and Benedict of being aware of and tolerating the transgressions of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop in Washington, for years.
"Bishops and priests,
