They are dismissed as further evidence of the fondness of Americans for cults and conspiracies. But the followers of the enigmatic Q are said to include close advisers to President Trump – and some on the conservative fringes of the Catholic Church

In August 2018, during Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican nuncio in Washington D.C., published an 11-page “testimony” claiming that Francis and several American cardinals and archbishops had teamed up over the years to cover up sexual abuse by clerics, and in particular had failed to address the crimes and misdemeanours of Theodore McCarrick, who had been appointed as Archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2001 in spite of several warnings about his behaviour.

Archbishop Viganò blamed (and named) several Church leaders who had protected a widespread “homosexual current” in the Vatican and said that Francis must resign. A lengthy Vatican report into how McCarrick rose so high in the Church is apparently ready to be released.