WelCom December 2024/January 2025
The Church of England’s most senior bishop, Justin Welby, has resigned ‘in sorrow’, saying he had failed to ensure there was a proper investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps decades ago.
Archbishop Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, had faced calls to resign after a new report concluded he had taken insufficient action to stop a person it described as arguably the Church’s most prolific serial abuser.
In his resignation letter, Archbishop Welby said he must take ‘personal and institutional responsibility’ for lack of action on the ‘heinous abuses’.
‘The last few days have renewed my long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England,’ he said in a statement.
Archbishop Welby resigned five days after the independent Makin Report singled him out for criticism over his handling of abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s.
The report said John Smyth, a UK lawyer, had subjected more than 100 boys and young men to ‘brutal and horrific’ physical and sexual abuse over a 40-year period.
Smyth was chair of the Iwerne Trust, which funded the Christian camps in Dorset in England, and Archbishop Welby worked at them as a dormitory officer before he was ordained.
Smyth moved to Africa in 1984 and continued to carry out the abuse until close to his death in 2018, the report said.
The Church of England knew at the highest level about the sexual abuse claims at the camps in 2013, and Archbishop Welby became aware, at the latest, about the accusations in the same year, months after he became archbishop, according to the report.
If the claims had been reported to the police in 2013, there could have been a full investigation, and Smyth might have faced charges before he died, the report said.
Source: SBS News