A former top Vatican official has accused Pope Francis of having known of allegations of sex abuse by a prominent US cardinal for years and called on him to resign, in an unprecedented broadside against the pope by a Church insider.
In a detailed 11-page bombshell statement given to conservative Roman Catholic media outlets during the Pope's visit to Ireland, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused a long list of current and past Vatican and US Church officials of covering up the case of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who resigned last month in disgrace.
In remarkably blunt language, Vigano said alleged cover-ups in the Church were making it look like "a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia".
"Pope Francis has repeatedly asked for total transparency in the Church," wrote Vigano, who has criticised the pope before.
"In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them," he said.
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