Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a prominent US cardinal who is accused of sexually abusing a teenager nearly five decades ago, the Vatican said today.
Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, was removed from the ministry in June after a review board found there was "credible" evidence that he had assaulted the teen while working as a priest in New York in the early 1970s.
"Yesterday evening the Holy Father received the letter in which Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington (USA), presented his resignation as a member of the College of Cardinals," the Vatican said in a statement today.
"Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the cardinalate and has ordered his suspension from the exercise of any public ministry, together with the obligation to remain in a house yet to be indicated to him, for a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial."