Pope Meets With US Church Leaders Over Clergy Sex Abuse

Pope Francis met with US bishops and cardinals on Thursday to discuss the Vatican's response to a new wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse by clergy.

Cit du Vatican, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Sep, 2018 ) :Pope Francis met with US bishops and cardinals on Thursday to discuss the Vatican's response to a new wave of devastating claims of sexual abuse by clergy.

The pope met Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, who leads the US Conference of Bishops, and Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who advises the pope on sex abuse issues.

DiNardo's deputy Jose Horacio Gomez and general secretary Brian Bransfield also attended the closed-door meeting.

The US Catholic Church has been shaken by the publication of a report on sexual abuse by clergy in Pennsylvania and by the resignation in July of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

He was accused of sexually abusing a teenager while working as a priest in New York in the early 1970s.

According to a new poll published by the US news channel CNN on Wednesday, Pope Francis's popularity has nosedived in the United States recently.

The poll showed that only 48 percent of Americans in general supported the Argentinian pontiff, and his popularity has also plummeted among US Catholics to 63 percent from 83 percent 18 months ago.

A former ambassador to the Holy See, Monsignor Carlo Vigano, has even demanded the pope's resignation, accusing him of covering up for McCarrick.

On Thursday, the pope accepted the resignation of US Bishop Michael Bransfield -- a cousin of the Bransfield attending Thursday's Vatican meeting -- and ordered an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, his Baltimore diocese said in a statement.