A former high-ranking Vatican official says Pope Francis should step down from the papacy because he knew about sexual abuse allegations against an influential American cardinal — and participated in covering them up.
Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal nuncio (an ambassador-like position), wrote an 11-page open letter alleging that both Pope Francis and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, knew about decades’ worth of allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC. McCarrick was removed from active ministry in June and later resigned his cardinalship after revelations emerged that he had sexually abused generations’ worth of junior seminarians and young priests as a priest and then bishop in New Jersey. He is also accused of having sexually abused at least two minors.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/26/17783168/pope-francis-vigano-cover-up-accusation-sex-abuse
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/26/17783168/pope-francis-vigano-cover-up-accusation-sex-abuse