Archbishop of Canterbury Resigns, Citing His 'Shame'

The archbishop of Canterbury, the topmost figure in the Church of England, has resigned under pressure following an independent report that found he failed to take action against a prolific child abuser. It's "unlikely" Justin Welby was unaware of the concerns around John Smyth, an attorney who sexually, physically, and psychologically abused an estimated 130 schoolboys and young men at Christian summer camps in the UK, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, in the late 1970s and early '80s, according to the findings released Thursday, per the Guardian and AP. After the UK abuse was discovered, church officials allowed Smyth, a senior camp official, to move to Africa, where he continued to abuse children at Christian camps, per the independent report by Keith Makin.

Welby, a volunteer at the camps, claimed he was unaware of concerns around Smyth until 2013. The 251-page Makin report determined Welby "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." (Church officials had received the results of an internal investigation in 1982.) It also noted Smyth, who died in Cape Town in 2018 at age 75, might have faced justice had Welby gone to the police, per the Guardian. In a Tuesday statement, Welby said he was "told that police had been notified" and "believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow."

In a Thursday statement, Welby apologized "not only for my own failures and omissions, but for the wickedness, concealment, and abuse by the church more widely, as set out in the report" but declined to to resign. By Tuesday, he'd changed his mind. "The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England," the archbishop said in his more recent statement, adding he hoped his resignation "makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church." Some 8,000 members of the church's parliament had called on Welby to resign in recent days, per Sky News. Now begins a "lengthy process" to replace the archbishop, per the BBC. The Guardian has more on that. (More Archbishop of Canterbury stories.)