Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., has done the right thing.

Since dropping his bombshell letter, the archbishop has gone into hiding, making intermittent statements to those news outlets who share his opposition to Francis.

Sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious and the scandal of its cover-up by church authorities thrive in countries where the Catholic Church is "elitist and clericalist," Pope Francis told Jesuits in Ireland in August.

The leaders of the U.S. bishops' conference said they shared with Pope Francis how the church in the United States has been "lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse."

Bransfield had been implicated in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case.

As U.S. Catholic leaders head to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis about a growing church abuse crisis, the cardinal leading the delegation has been accused by two people of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.