Archbishop demands Pope's resignation

Pope Francis 

The archbishop who sparked a crisis inside the Catholic Church by calling on Pope Francis to resign has denied he was motivated via personal vendetta and said he sought to reveal that corruption had reached the pinnacle levels of the Church hierarchy.

Archbishop Carlo  Vigano has gone into hiding since conservative media posted an 11-page assertion wherein he alleged the pope knew for years about sexual misconduct by an American cardinal and did nothing about it.

Vigano has been communicating via Aldo Maria Valli, an Italian television journalist who Vigano consulted several times before releasing his statement last Sunday while the pope was in ireland.

Italian media has said he was upset due to the fact he was in no way made a cardinal by former Pope Benedict or because Francis blocked his further advancement in the Church.

“I have never had feelings of vendetta and rancor in all these years,” he was quoted as telling Valli, who has been publishing statements from Vigano in his blog.

“I spoke out due to the fact corruption has reached the top levels of Church hierarchy,” stated Vigano, a former Vatican ambassador to Washington.

The Vatican had no comment on the new accusations by Vigano.

In his assertion, Vigano accused a long list of current and past Vatican and U.S. Church officials of masking up the case of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who resigned last month in shame.

One of the people he attack inside the assertion is Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, who was secretary of state under former Pope Benedict.

Italian media reports have said Vigano was upset due to the fact Bertone had blocked any possibility of him becoming a cardinal.

In his remarks published on Valli’s blog, Vigano says he himself gave up the possibility of becoming a cardinal “for the good of the Church”.

Vigano did not include any supporting documents in his remarkably blunt statement in which he said cover-ups in the Church were making it seem like “a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia”.

On his flight home from ireland on Sunday, Francis informed newsmen he would “not say one word” about the accusations.

“Study the document carefully and choose it for yourselves,” he said.

Francis’ supporters say the assertion consists of holes and contradictions and be aware that Vigano prepared it with assist from two journalists who've been critical of Pope Francis, citing this as proof that it forms a part of an ideological anti-Francis strategy.

The journalists deny this.