VATICAN CITY (AP) — The archbishop of Washington has "categorically denied" ever being told that Pope Benedict XVI had sanctioned his predecessor for sexual misconduct, undercutting a key element of the bombshell allegation that the current pope covered up clergy abuse.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl issued a statement Monday after the Vatican's former ambassador to the United States accused Pope Francis of effectively freeing ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the sanctions in 2013 despite knowing of McCarrick's sexual predations against seminarians.

Wuerl would have presumably known about the sanctions since McCarrick lived in his archdiocese.

The claims of the former Vatican ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, have thrown Francis' papacy into crisis. His main allegation rests on what sanctions, if any, Benedict imposed and what, if anything, Francis did to alter them.