Why Archbishop is now paying the price for years of silence over child abuse scandal
11 November 2024 4:47pm GMT
The Most Rev Justin Welby has never hesitated to criticise the perceived shortcomings of fellow clergy – or the Church of England itself as an institution.
But as calls mount for his resignation, the Archbishop of Canterbury appears unwilling to recognise his own alleged failings.
Last Thursday, an independent review found his failure to act when concerns were raised with him about John Smyth, an evangelical Christian camp leader, meant the Church’s most prolific child abuser was never brought to justice.
The Archbishop now faces extreme pressure to quit, with a senior bishop calling his position “untenable” and a petition seeking for his resignation set up by three members of the General Synod that has garnered thousands of signatures.
On Monday morning, the Archbishop insisted he “does not intend to resign”. However, a string of battles with the wider Church over everything from gay rights to alleged racism on the pews has left him with very few cheerleaders.
No senior clergy have spoken out in support of him since an independent review found Smyth’s “abhorrent abuse” could have been exposed in 2013 – three years before it was made public – if the Archbishop had reported him to the police.
Smyth, a barrister who ran Christian youth camps, abused at least 115 children and young men across three countries in the five decades before his death, in August 2018.
The report, commissioned by the Church of England’s national safeguarding team and written by Keith Makin, the former director of social services, found Smyth’s abuse was covered up by “powerful evangelical clergy”.
The Archbishop has repeatedly stressed he had “no awareness or suspicion” of the abuse prior to 2013, when the Bishop of Ely’s safeguarding adviser had told him in detail about Smyth’s decades of abuse.
However, reviewers of the Makin Report have described this statement as “unlikely”.
It concluded: “On the balance of probabilities, it is the opinion of the reviewers that it was unlikely that Justin Welby would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding John Smyth in the 1980s in the UK.
“He may not have known of the extreme seriousness of the abuse, but it is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.”
Speaking to the BBC on Monday afternoon, Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Newcastle, said the Church risked “losing complete credibility” surrounding safeguarding without taking action following the “horrific, horrendous and shocking” report.
“It’s very hard to find the words to respond adequately to what the report tells us,” Bishop Hartley told the World at One.
“I think rightly people are asking the question ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ And I think the answer at the moment is ‘no’,” she said.