Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the most senior leader in the Church of England, has resigned over his handling of a child abuse case, according to his official account.
“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Welby said in a statement on Tuesday.
Pressure had been mounting on Welby in recent days, following an independent review into “sickening abuse” committed by John Smyth, a deceased British lawyer considered the worst serial abuser linked to the Church of England.
The incriminating report, commissioned by the church and released November 7, tracked a “worrying pattern of deference” to Smyth, concluding that “a serious crime was covered up.”
In Welby’s resignation statement, he said the review “has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.”
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow,” Welby added. “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
It is unclear when Welby will leave his post. In his resignation statement, he said: “exact timings will be decided once a review of necessary obligations has been completed, including those in England and in the Anglican Communion.”
Summer camps
Smyth perpetrated “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks” on as many as 130 boys and young men, with abuse spanning from the 1970s up until his death, in 2018 – according to the Makin Review.
He was accused of abusing his own family members, as well as attendees of evangelical Christian summer camps he helped run for students from Britain’s prestigious private colleges in the 1970s and 1980s.
From 1984 to 2001, when Smyth relocated to Zimbabwe and then South Africa, church officers “knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring,” the report added. Welby worked at the summer camps that Smyth helped run. The pair exchanged Christmas cards and Welby donated small sums of money to his “missions” in Zimbabwe.
In 2017, Channel 4 News reported on Smyth’s abuse. After the publication of the independent review earlier this month, Welby told the network he “did not” ensure the allegations were pursued as “energetically” and “remorselessly” as they should have been, when he rose to the highest rank in the church, in 2013. He was first ordained as a priest in 1993.
The church’s review found that there was a “missed opportunity” in 2012 and 2013 by the highest levels of the church to “properly” report him to law enforcement.
The review said that “it is not possible to establish whether Justin Welby knew of the severity of the abuses in the UK prior to 2013,” adding: “It is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.”
The Bishop of Newcastle was the most high-ranking church official to call for Welby’s resignation. On Monday, Helen-Ann Hartley told the BBC that it would be untenable for members of the clergy to “have a moral voice… when we cannot get our own house in order.”
Throughout his tenure, Welby has demanded accountability from those accused of mishandling abuse, including his predecessor, George Carey, and the former Bishop of Lincoln. Until now, there’s been no historical precedent for an Archbishop of Canterbury resigning over child abuse.