Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns over abuse scandal

The leader of the world’s Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, announced, on Tuesday, November 12, that he was resigning, following a damning report that concluded that the Church of England covered up a case of serial abuse. Welby had faced days of growing pressure to quit after the independent probe found he “could and should” have formally reported decades of abuse by a Church-linked lawyer to authorities, in 2013. A petition demanding his resignation, launched in the wake of the report’s revelations, has garnered nearly 14,000 signatures, while leading clergy, including some bishops, were increasingly urging him to quit.

“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and re-traumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in a statement. “I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church,” he continued, adding: “As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”

The independent Makin Review concluded that John Smyth, a lawyer who organized evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s, was responsible for “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse of as many as 130 boys and young men. It found that the Church of England – the mother church of Anglicanism – covered up the “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks,” which occurred in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa over several decades.

Smyth, who lived in Africa from 1984, died, aged 75, in South Africa in 2018, while under investigation by British police. He never faced any criminal charges.

‘Failed’

Appointed as the Church of England’s highest-ranking cleric in 2013, Welby has apologized for what occurred, but previously insisted that he would not resign because he did not know about the wrongdoing before then. On Tuesday, he said he was told that year that police had been notified and had “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.”

Hours earlier, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had ratcheted up the pressure on Welby when he said Smyth’s victims had been “failed very, very badly.” Asked whether Welby should stand down, Starmer, a former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, said it was “a matter, in the end, for the Church.” “But I’m not going to shy away from the fact that these are horrific allegations and that my thoughts are with the victims in relation to it,” he added.

The report into Smyth, led by former social services chief Keith Makin, concluded those “at the highest level” within the Church knew, from mid-2013, about the extent of his abusive crimes. The failure to alert police “represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice” it said.

It may also have “resulted in an ongoing and avoidable safeguarding threat in the period between 2012 and his death in 2018.” The Makin probe also further criticized the Church’s response to a 2017 Channel 4 expose of Smyth’s abuses, calling it “poor in terms of speed, professionalism, intensity and curiosity.”