Head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby has resigned.
Archbishop Welby quit on Tuesday after an investigation found that he failed to disclose to the police about the serial physical and sexual abuse by a deceased volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.
The strong outcry had come from the victims of the late John Smyth, a prominent attorney who abused teenage boys and young men at Christian summer camps in Britain, Zimbabwe, and South Africa over five decades.
The church on Thursday released the results of an independent investigation into Smyth, who sexually, psychologically, and physically abused about 30 boys and young men in the United Kingdom and 85 in Africa beginning in the 1970s.
The 251-page report of the Makin Review concluded that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, soon after he became the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday when the release of the inquiry’s findings kindled anger about lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church.
“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and traumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in the statement announcing his resignation.
“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve.”
The bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley said on Monday that Welby’s position was “untenable” after some members of the church’s national assembly started a petition calling on him to step down because he had “lost the confidence of his clergy.”
One of the victims, Andrew Morse, who was repeatedly beaten by Smyth for five years, said that resigning was a chance for Welby to start repairing the damage caused by the church’s handling of historical abuse cases more broadly.
“I believe that now is an opportunity for him to resign,’’ Morse told the BBC before Welby stepped down.
“I say opportunity in the sense that this would be an opportunity for him to stand with the victims of the Smyth abuse and all victims that have not been treated properly by the Church of England in their own abuse cases.”
Welby’s resignation came against the backdrop of widespread historical sexual abuse in the Church of England.
A 2022 report by the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse found that deference to the authority of priests, taboos surrounding the discussion of sexuality, and a culture that gave more support to alleged perpetrators than their victims helped make the Church of England “a place where abusers could hide.”
Welby’s supporters had argued that he had been instrumental in changing the culture of the church since he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.
But it was an investigation into crimes that began long before that date that ultimately led to his resignation.
Welby last week took responsibility for not ensuring that the allegations were pursued as “energetically” as they should have been after he learned of the abuse but said he had decided not to resign.
On Monday, Welby’s office issued a statement reiterating that position and expressing his “horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse.”
Church officials were first made aware of the abuse in 1982 when they received the results of an internal investigation into Smyth.
The recipients of that report “participated in an active cover-up” to prevent its findings from coming to light, the Makin Review found.
Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 and later relocated to South Africa where he continued to abuse boys and young men in Zimbabwe, and there is evidence that the abuse continued in South Africa until he died in August 2018.
Smyth’s abuse was not made public until a 2017 investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 television station, which led police in Hampshire to start an investigation.
Police were planning to question Smyth at the time of his death and had been preparing to extradite him.
