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." 
 
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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.)