Archbishop of Canterbury resigns over abuse scandal

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Justin Welby has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury after intense pressure over his role in the Church of England’s failure to halt years of sexual and physical attacks carried out by a child abuser associated with the institution.

“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty the King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Welby said on Tuesday.

The decision follows mounting pressure on Welby that included a petition from senior church leaders, the intervention of a bishop and the failure of Sir Keir Starmer to back him earlier on Tuesday.

During his 11-year tenure, he oversaw the introduction of female bishops, and presided over the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and the coronation of King Charles III.

Welby said that when he was informed in 2013 about the “heinous abuses” carried out by John Smyth, a Christian barrister, he was told that the police had been notified and he believed “wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”.

He added that a review into the church’s handling of the allegations about Smyth by Keith Makin, released last week, had exposed a “long-maintained conspiracy of silence”.

“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said, adding that his stepping aside was “in the best interests of the church”.

Downing Street said Starmer “respects the decision” of the archbishop to step down, but that the prime minister had not intervened to persuade him to do so, saying this was a “matter for the church”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Starmer called the revelations in Makin’s report “horrific”.

Speaking at COP29 in Baku, the prime minister said: “Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific . . . both in their scale and their content. My thoughts . . . are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly.”

Makin’s report detailed the brutal abuse of boys and young men committed by Smyth over a 40-year period starting out at Christian summer camps in Hampshire in the 1970s and continuing in Zimbabwe, where he settled in 1984, and South Africa, where he subsequently lived until his death in 2018.

It described Smyth as “arguably the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England”, and said there was clear evidence his crimes were “covered up, minimised and held as secret from at least 1982”.

The “inaction of clergy within the Church of England” had enabled Smyth to continue his attacks in Africa, it said.

Bishop of London Dame Sarah Mullally, the third most senior bishop in the institution, said the church needs “a reset in how safeguarding is scrutinised”. She said Welby’s resignation “creates the necessary space to enable change. We need a genuinely survivor-focused approach, with independent scrutiny and mandatory reporting at its heart.”

Welby said last week that he had decided not to resign, and reiterated that decision in a statement on Monday. But pressure has been steadily mounting and a petition launched by three members of the church’s ruling General Synod for him to go had gained more than 10,000 signatures by Tuesday.

The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, had also described his position as “untenable”.

Welby attended the Iwerne Christian summer camps in Hampshire where Smyth began physically and sexually abusing boys and young men in the 1970s and made donations to similar Christian camps the barrister ran after moving to Zimbabwe in 1984.

Makin’s report gave an account of Welby’s long standing acquaintance with Smyth, and said he had been warned about his character. But it found no evidence the archbishop was aware of the severity of Smyth’s abuses at the time.

The reports main criticism of Welby was for failing to do more to pursue the issue once he became archbishop in 2013. “Justin Welby held a personal and moral responsibility to pursue this further, whatever the policies at play at the time required,” it said.

The archbishop, who is also the spiritual leader of the world’s 85mn strong Anglican community, said the exact timing of when he would stand down and be replaced would now be reviewed.

“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. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse,” he said.

“The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England. For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done.”