A former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. said Sunday that he told Pope Francis in 2013 about allegations of sexual abuse against a prominent priest — and that Francis took no action. Now he is calling for Francis to step down. 
 
 Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano made the claims in a lengthy statement that concludes with a call for Francis' resignation: "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 to Cardinals and Bishops who covered up McCarrick's abuses and resign along with all of them," he writes. 
 
 CBS News spoke on a video call with Vigano, who confirmed he wrote the statement and said he was speaking out now "to combat the grave situation in the church, to protect the church and also to stop future abuse." He told CBS News producer Anna Matranga that he had no agenda and was stating facts. 
 
 Vigano, who retired in 2016 at age 75, described an exchange with Francis on June 23, 2013, shortly after he became pope. It involved Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who resigned last month over claims he sexually abused seminary students and an altar boy. 
 
 Vigano writes that he told Francis about the allegations: "Holy Father, I don't know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you ask the Congregation for Bishops there is a dossier this thick about him. He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance." 
 
 Vigano writes the pope did not respond to the statement, and McCarrick continued in his role as a public figure for the church. 
 
 Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, then-Apostolic Nuncio to United States, listens to remarks at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall meeting, Monday, Nov. 16, 2015, in Baltimore. Patrick Semansky / AP 
 
 "Pope Francis has repeatedly asked for total transparency in the Church," Vigano continues. "He must honestly state when he first learned about the crimes committed by McCarrick, who abused his authority with seminarians and priests. In any case, the Pope learned about it from me on June 23, 2013 and continued to cover him." 
 
 Pope Francis addressed the sex abuse scandal on Saturday in comments made in Dublin. "The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community," he said. "I myself share these sentiments." 
 
 Pope Francis accepted McCarrick's resignation on July 28. McCarrick has maintained his innocence. 
 
 Father Boniface Ramsey of New York told CBS News this month that he repeatedly complained about McCarrick and heard about his disturbing behavior as early as 1986. 
 
 This month, a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a report that said more than 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children, and likely thousands more, over seven decades. 
 
 Nearly 100 of the accused clergy are from the Pittsburgh diocese alone, where Donald Wuerl, the current cardinal of Washington, D.C., was the bishop for 18 years. 
 
 In his statement, Vigano writes that Wuerl also knew about McCarrick. "His recent statements that he knew nothing about it … are absolutely laughable. The cardinal lies shamelessly." 
 
 On Sunday, a spokesperson for Wuerl responded to the new claims: "In spite of what Archbishop Vigano's memo indicates, Cardinal Wuerl did not receive any documentation or information during his time in Washington regarding any actions taken against Archbishop McCarrick." 
 
 In an interview with CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste before the grand jury report, Wuerl said that he was quick to deal with allegations and that he was not aware of any rumors about McCarrick. 
 
 "If there were allegations, we dealt with them immediately," he said. "All the time that [McCarrick] was here and certainly all the time that I've been here, there was never any news. If I could tell you no one ever came to me and said this person did this to me. No one. No one. And remember, we were just talking about Pittsburgh. I was in Pittsburgh...we weren't following the rumors of different parts of the country." 
 
 Wuerl also suggested to CBS News that McCarrick had paid a price for his actions. "He has resigned and his resignation has been accepted. And he's been told to stay in seclusion...that's a pretty substantial penalty to be paying." 
 
 Vigano's statement calls on the church to take action. "To restore the beauty of holiness to the face of the Bride of Christ — so tremendously disfigured by so many abominable crimes, if we truly want to free the Church from the fetid swamp into which she has fallen, we must have the courage to tear down the culture of secrecy and publicly confess the truths that we have kept hidden." ||||| Facing an uproar over revelations that he mismanaged past cases of clerical sexual abuse, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, sent a letter informing his priests on Tuesday that he plans to discuss his resignation with Pope Francis in Rome. 
 
 Cardinal Wuerl has faced calls for his resignation by some of his priests and parishioners since the release of a bombshell grand jury report last month in Pennsylvania. Cardinal Wuerl previously served as the archbishop of Pittsburgh, and the report included accounts of his allowing several priests accused of sexually abusing children to remain in ministry, after relying on the advice of psychologists who had assessed the priests. 
 
 The cardinal had gained the confidence of both Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who relied on the low-key bureaucrat to steer international gatherings of bishops at the Vatican. 
 
 But Cardinal Wuerl has been tarred by association with his predecessor in Washington, the former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, who recently stepped down as a cardinal after accusations that decades ago, he molested an altar boy and coerced seminary students to sleep in his bed. ||||| (CNN) Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the embattled archbishop of Washington, will travel to the Vatican "in the very near future" to ask Pope Francis to accept his resignation, a spokesman said. 
 
 In a letter to priests in the diocese, Wuerl said he will meet with Francis about the resignation he presented nearly three years ago at age 75, the mandatory age for Catholic bishops to submit their retirement to the Pope. He said a decision about his future "is an essential aspect so that this archdiocesan church we all love can move forward." 
 
 "Our discernment here, I believe, has indicated the way forward to bring healing and a new beginning at the service of this church," Wuerl said. 
 
 Ed McFadden, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington, said on Wednesday that Wuerl will ask Pope Francis to accept his resignation. McFadden said he did not know when the meeting would occur. A contingent of American bishops is meeting on Thursday with the Pope in Rome, but Wuerl is not among them, according to the Vatican. 
 
 At a recent meeting with the Pope in Vatican City, Wuerl said in his letter, the Pope asked him to consider the best course of action "as we face new revelations of the extent of the horror of the clergy abuse of children and the failures in episcopal oversight." 
 
 Read More ||||| CLOSE A Pennsylvania grand jury has found that more than 300 clergy members committed sexual abuse over a period of decades. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says the probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials. (Aug. 15) AP 
 
 An editorial cartoon in the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal illustrates the horrifying extent of the sexual abuse detailed in the Pennsylvania grand jury's report. (Photo: Andy Marlette, Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal) 
 
 After two days of deafening silence, the Vatican on Thursday condemned newly revealed sex abuses that raged for decades in six dioceses in Pennsylvania as "criminal and morally reprehensible.” 
 
 “Those acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and faith,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement, adding that the victims should know Pope Francis is on their side. 
 
 Until Thursday, the Vatican had declined to address the allegations from a scathing 884-page grand jury report about the abuse. 
 
 Expressing "shame and sorrow'' for the Vatican, Burke's strongly worded statement said "The church must learn hard lessons from its past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur.” 
 
 ► Aug. 16: Catholic church in Pa. had 'playbook' to keep priest abuse secret, FBI said 
 
 ► Aug. 16: 40 Pennsylvania priests confessed their crimes; little was done afterward 
 
 ► Aug. 15: 'Men of God' kept it secret as priests systematically abused kids 
 
 The report, released Tuesday, alleges that more than 300 “predator priests’’ had been accused of raping and sexually molesting more than 1,000 kids over a period of 70 years. The Catholic Church had engaged in a “systematic cover-up’’ while shifting the abusive priests from one parish to another, the report says. 
 
 Also Thursday, U.S. bishops urged the Vatican to conduct an investigation into former Washington, D.C., archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals in July amid allegations that he sexually abused minors and adult seminarians for decades. 
 
 “Those acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and faith.” Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman 
 
 The bishops also said they would establish a mechanism for victims to report sexual abuse by the clergy without church interference. 
 
 Details of the grand jury report have horrified members of the church and non-Catholics alike with stunning revelations. Among them: a priest molested a 7-year-old girl during a visit to a hospital where she had her tonsils removed; priests shared naked photos of abuse victims; a priest arranged an abortion after impregnating a girl he had raped; and a priest got a reference letter for a Disney World job after years of complaints about his abusive acts. 
 
 The grand jury also said the number of abused children was in the thousands. But an exact figure is hard to pinpoint because some records have been lost and many of the victims did not come forward because they were intimidated or persuaded to stay quiet while the church shielded the abusers. 
 
 “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades,’’ the grand jury wrote. 
 
 Francis, who became the leader of the Catholic Church five years ago, has been criticized in the past for not addressing forcefully enough the issue of clergy sexual abuse. 
 
 ► Aug. 15: Priest recommended for Disney World job after sexual abuse allegations 
 
 ► Aug. 14: Church protected more than 300 'predator priests,' grand jury says 
 
 However, the director of a new documentary about the pope portrayed him in a May interview as deeply disturbed by the sex abuse crisis. 
 
 “Each time, this was the most agitated and the most furious he got, and you realized it was something that tormented him so much,’’ said Wim Wenders, who directed "Pope Francis – A Man of His Word." 
 
 “He really got very adamant: 'Tolerencia cero.' ‘Zero tolerance’ was really from the heart. It was the angriest thing he said in the entire interview.” 
 
 Pope Francis delivers a speech at the Vatican on April 25, 2018. (Photo: AP) 
 
 Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro had sent Francis a letter in July warning him that his office’s 18-month investigation has discovered “widespread sexual abuse of children and a systematic cover-up by leaders of the Catholic Church,’’ CNN reported. 
 
 The Vatican never responded. 
 
 The impact of the grand jury report has been felt far and wide. 
 
 McCarrick's replacement in Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, came under some criticism in the report for his handling of sexual abuse cases during his tenure as bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. The report indicated Wuerl steered some accused priests away from parishes but let others return. 
 
 At the Catholic high school named for Wuerl in the Pittsburgh suburb of Cranberry, Pennsylvania, a group of alumni has started a petition to have the name changed. 
 
 Wuerl, who has retained the international law firm Jones Day to represent him, issued a statement defending his conduct in Pittsburgh. 
 
 “While I understand this Report may be critical of some of my actions, I believe the Report confirms that I acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse,'' he said. "I sincerely hope that a just assessment of my actions, past and present, and my continuing commitment to the protection of children will dispel any notions otherwise made by this report.” 
 
 Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Jorge L. Ortiz on Twitter: @jorgelortiz 
 
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– Since last month's grand jury report describing how the former archbishop of Pittsburgh reassigned priests accused of abusing children, Cardinal Donald Wuerl has had his name scrubbed from a school, been the subject of protests by Catholic schoolteachers, and faced calls from priests and parishioners to resign. Resignation is now on the table, the 77-year-old archbishop of Washington wrote in a Tuesday letter to priests, laying out a plan to discuss the subject with Pope Francis in Rome. Wuerl submitted his resignation at age 75 as is required of Catholic bishops, but the pope kept him on as one of his top US advisers, per the New York Times and CNN. During a meeting two weeks ago, the pope told Wuerl to consult with priests about the best way forward, reports the Wall Street Journal. Amid questions over whether he knew about molestation claims against his predecessor, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, he heard calls for him both to stay and resign. That showed the need for "some decision, sooner rather than later, on my part," Wuerl writes. Noting abuse survivors "have personally suffered so much," his letter adds non-victims "have also been wounded by the shame of these terrible actions and have questions about their bishop's ability to provide the necessary leadership." The letter doesn't say whether Wuerl will ask the pope to accept his resignation, however. (Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's former ambassador to the US, said Wuerl was complicit in a coverup.)