DUBLIN (AP) — The Vatican's retired ambassador to the United States has penned an 11-page letter accusing senior Vatican officials of knowing as early as 2000 that the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, regularly invited seminarians into his bed, but promoted him to cardinal nevertheless.

The National Catholic Register and another conservative site, LifeSiteNews, published the letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano on Sunday.

In it, Vigano accused the former Vatican secretaries of state under the previous two popes of having ignored detailed denunciations against McCarrick for years. He said Pope Benedict XVI eventually sanctioned McCarrick in 2009 or 2010 but that Pope Francis rehabilitated him.

Francis accepted McCarrick's resignation as cardinal last month, after a U.S. church investigation determined an accusation he had sexually abused a minor was credible.