VATICAN CITY (AP) — Revelations that the most respected U.S. cardinal repeatedly sexually abused both boys and adult seminarians have raised questions about who in the Catholic Church hierarchy knew, and what Pope Francis is going to do about it.

If the accusations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick bear out — including a new case reported Friday involving an 11-year-old boy — will Francis revoke his title of cardinal? Sanction him to a lifetime of penance and prayer? Or even defrock him, the expected sanction if McCarrick were a mere priest?

The matter is on the desk of the pope, who has already spent the better part of 2018 dealing with a child sex abuse, adult gay sex and cover-up scandal in Chile that was so vast the entire bishops conference offered to resign.