Pope Francis should resign

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.

Vigano said he had told Francis in June 2013, just after he was elected pope by his fellow cardinals, about the accusations against McCarrick.

The statement was the latest blow to the credibility of the US Church. Nearly two weeks ago, a grand jury in Pennsylvania released the findings of the largest-ever investigation of sex abuse in the US Catholic Church, finding that 301 priests in the state had sexually abused minors over the past 70 years.

McCarrick was one of the highest-ranking church officials accused of sex abuse in a scandal that has rocked the 1.2 billion-member faith since reports of priests abusing children and bishops covering up for them were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002.

Since then patterns of widespread abuse of children have been reported across the globe, undercutting the Church's moral authority.

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness yesterday during his highly charged visit to Ireland for the "scandal and betrayal" felt by victims of sexual exploitation by Catholic clergy. On Saturday he said the corruption and cover-up of abuse amounted to human excrement, according to victims.