Washington’s embattled Catholic leader, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, says he’s sorry — that he forgot he knew about abuse allegations against his pervy predecessor, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

“It is important for me to accept personal responsibility and apologize for this lapse in memory,” the retired archbishop wrote in a letter this week, according to local outlets.

The apology comes after a former priest, Robert Ciolek, went public to the Washington Post with documents from the Pittsburgh Diocese that showed then-Bishop Wuerl reported allegations against McCarrick to the Vatican in 2004.

The allegations were reported by Wuerl after Ciolek testified to the Pittsburgh Diocese’s Review Board in 2004 that he was abused by a local priest as a teen and that McCarrick had been behaving inappropriately.

During his testimony, Ciolek said McCarrick pressured seminarians to sleep in double beds with him and gave them unwanted back rubs, the Washington Post report said.

“I don’t believe for one moment that he’s ever forgotten about it,” Ciolek told local outlet WPXI about Wuerl.

When Ciolek first went public with the documents — proof that Wuerl hadn’t been truthful since the scandal erupted last summer — Wuerl released a statement saying he’d been trying to protect Ciolek’s confidentiality.

But on Tuesday, Wuerl called Ciolek to apologize in a 45-minute chat. He also sent the letter saying sorry for forgetting he’d known about the allegation of misconduct.

“There was never the intention to provide false information,” the letter said.

Pope Francis accepted Wuerl’s retirement as archbishop earlier than expected last fall, as the cardinal was being blasted over how he handled sex abuse cases when he was the Pittsburgh bishop. He was named in the scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report as having concealed complaints of predator priests.

There were also suspicions about what he knew of the McCarrick scandal — even as he repeatedly claimed he knew nothing.