A report released this weekend by a former Vatican ambassador to the United States charges that Pope Francis knew about sexual abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, removed a suspension placed on him by Pope Benedict, and proceeded to make the known abuser one of his most trusted advisors. Pope Francis knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator, [but] he covered for him to the bitter end," wrote Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, nuncio to Washington from 2011-2016, before demanding the pontiff resign. That is a damning allegation coming from a very senior church leader. Even more profound is the charge by an Argentinian woman who says the sexual abuse of her son was covered up by this pope, who had her forcibly removed from his office when she tried to report the crime when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and then known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. The harsh reality that all Catholics need to realize is that ... there are few protections when the predators are the bishops who are empowered to police themselves and instead cover up for each other, from the pope on down. A trope of the last six papacies has been [known] to extol the advances of a supposed "Springtime of Vatican II," the revolutionary church council from 1962-65 that was called to open the Church to the modern world. Far from a spring flowering, the festering sex-abuse scandal shows that the Church of Rome is actually going through a long, cold, very dark winter.