Pope's silence confirms allegations' says Viganò

(ANSA) - Vatican City, September 28 - The archbishop who accused Pope Francis of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations in the Catholic Church has said the pontiff's silence confirms that he knew but kept quiet in a new letter. In the letter published by conservative Catholic website 'Lifesitenews', symbolically dated September 29, the liturgical feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, said that the Vatican's silence on the dossier he has presented on sexual misconduct is proof his allegations are true.
    "The pope's unwillingness to respond to my charges and his deafness to the appeals by the faithful for accountability are hardly consistent with his calls for transparency and bridge building," Vigano wrote.
    "Moreover, the pope's cover-up of McCarrick was clearly not an isolated mistake", he also wrote. "Many more instances have recently been documented in the press, showing that Pope Francis has defended homosexual clergy who committed serious sexual abuses against minors or adults".
    Vigano, who served as Vatican ambassador from 2011-2016, has emerged as a controversial figure since accusing the Pope and top Vatican officials of weaving a "conspiracy of silence", in another public statement published earlier this month.
    In the first letter, the archbishop urged Pope Francis to resign, saying he was part of a "cover-up" involving former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, whom the Pope forced to step down after accusations of sexual misconduct with seminarians and claims that he abused a minor in the 1970s. In an interview published Friday by Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) said the dossier on the pontiff is "absurd".
    "The pope was right in not having an immediate reaction, but there are elements to take apart these falsehoods," he said.