Anglican Church leader Justin Welby resigns over child abuse cover-up allegations

The leader of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, presented his resignation in a statement this Tuesday, November 12, following accusations that his institution covered up for years the physical, psychological and sexual assault of more than a hundred minors committed by lawyer John Smyth, in his role as a leader of Christian camps.

“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our deep commitment to creating a more secure institution,” Welby said in the text.

The archbishop until now, who had previously ruled out resigning from the position, explained that, as is protocol, he asked permission to do so from King Charles III, the (non-religious) head of the Church of England, the majority in the United Kingdom.

In his note, Justin Welby argued that when he took office in 2013 he was informed that the Police were aware of alleged abuses committed for decades by Christian camp leader John Smyth, and that he “mistakenly thought there would be a resolution”.

“It is clear that I must assume personal and institutional responsibility for the long and traumatic period between 2013 and 2024,” when an internal investigation exposed the errors committed by the parties and their individual responsibility, he stated.

The Anglican leader acknowledged that The so-called Makin report, presented last week, revealed “the long-held conspiracy of silence over John Smyth’s atrocious abuses”.

Several Anglican religious leaders had been calling for his resignation for days, following a damning report on how the Church handled the so-called Makin case. Among them is the Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley, the most senior person to call Welby’s position “untenable”, admitted last week that she should have acted when she learned of Smyth’s behaviour.

On November 9, three members of the General Synod, the elected body responsible for deciding matters of Church of England doctrine, submitted a petition calling for him to resign, which had more than 12,500 signatures by Tuesday.

Between the 1970s and the mid-2010s, John Smyth, a lawyer who chaired a charity linked to the Anglican Church and organized holiday camps, sexually abused 130 children and young people in the United Kingdom and then in Africaparticularly in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he settled and died in 2018, without being tried.

The institution was officially informed of these events in 2013, but many officials had known about them since the 1980s and kept them silent. as part of a “cover-up campaign”, an investigation commissioned by the Anglican Church itself concluded, in a report published last Thursday.

Before Justin Welby’s announcement occurred, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described on Tuesday the physical and sexual attacks committed against children as “horrible” and deplored that these victims had been “abandoned.” However, he did not comment directly on calls for Justin Welby’s resignation. “It is a matter for the Church,” he declared during a press conference in Baku, where he is at COP29.

“But I will have no hesitation in saying that these are horrific allegations and my thoughts are with the victims, who were very seriously neglected,” the Labor prime minister added.

Priest Giles Fraser, himself a victim of abuse as a child, told the BBC that Justin Welby “has lost the trust of the clergy,” while Bishop Hartley warned it was difficult to “continue to have a say on morality” under his leadership.

He also stated that the resignation of the primate “would be a clear indication that a line has been drawn and that progress is being made towards independence in matters of protection” of minors within the church.