By Stephen Castle and Mark Landler
The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, resigned Tuesday after a damning report concluded that he had failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men decades ago at Christian summer camps.
Pressure had mounted relentlessly on Welby, who serves as the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, after the report was published. Helen-Ann Hartley, a senior figure in the church and the bishop of Newcastle, called on him publicly to step aside, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer pointedly declined to back him.
Welby’s resignation brings to an abrupt end an eventful and occasionally stormy tenure, during which he became Britain’s best-known cleric, presiding over momentous public ceremonies like the coronation of King Charles III and becoming an impassioned voice on issues like migration.
But Welby struggled to hold together a church cleaved between progressives and traditionalists, and he was ultimately brought down by the same type of sex-abuse scandals that have toppled leaders of the Catholic Church.
“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in a statement Tuesday, confirming that he had sought permission from the king to resign.
“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church,” Welby said. “As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”
The turmoil in the Church of England follows a cascade of scandals in the Catholic Church in which the failure to protect young people from predatory priests and the lack of proper investigations into accusations of wrongdoing have soiled the church’s reputation in several countries.
Under the Church of England’s rules, managing the selection of Welby’s successor falls to a committee known as the Crown Nominations Commission. It submits the name of a preferred candidate and a backup to the prime minister, who then advises the monarch on the appointment.
That process could take several months, experts on the church said, and it is cloaked in mystery. By custom, candidates for archbishop do not promote themselves for the job, whose roots date to 597. Welby, 68, confessed to astonishment that he had been chosen as the 105th archbishop. He has held the job since 2013 and was scheduled to retire in 2026.
Welby had navigated a bitter, yearslong debate in the church over how to treat same-sex marriage. The Church of England allows priests to bless same-sex couples, though it continues to debate a more formal recognition of these unions. But it was his handling of the sex-abuse scandal that proved his undoing.
Last week, the independent review concluded that the archbishop had failed to take sufficient action following reports of “abhorrent” abuse by John Smyth, a senior British lawyer, of more than 100 boys and young men since the 1970s and 1980s.
The report, compiled by Keith Makin, a former social services director, said that over four decades, Smyth became “arguably, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England,” operating in three countries, where he inflicted physical, sexual and psychological attacks on as many as 130 people. He died in 2018 in South Africa.
The report criticized the actions of a number of people within the church. “Despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up,” it said.
In a statement in response to Makin’s report, Welby said he had had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013,” but that he then “personally failed” to ensure that the claims of abuse were investigated properly. Welby said in 2017 that he had met Smyth but “wasn’t a close friend of his.”
Repeating an apology he made to the reviewers, Welby acknowledged that “he did not meet quickly with victims after the full horror of the abuse was revealed” by Britain’s Channel 4 in 2017.
“I promised to see them and failed until 2020,” he said. “This was wrong.”
That television report gave details of how Smyth had groomed boys and young men at Christian summer camps, universities and at Winchester College, a top British private school, before subjecting them to savage beatings.
Smyth convinced those he abused “that the way to Christ was through suffering,” the Makin report said, adding that he subjected them to “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks. The impact of that abuse is impossible to overstate and has permanently marked the lives of his victims.”
The report said it had found “clear evidence that the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth in the U.K.” was “‘covered up’, minimized and held as ‘secret’ from at least 1982 (and possibly earlier.)”
From July 2013, the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse, it said, while Welby became aware of the claims against Smyth around August 2013, in his capacity as archbishop of Canterbury.
It added: “There was a distinct lack of curiosity shown by these senior figures and a tendency toward minimization of the matter, demonstrated by the absence of any further questioning and follow up.”
The report said Smyth could and should have been reported to the police in 2013, a step that probably would have led to a full investigation; the uncovering of the serial nature of the abuses in Britain, involving multiple victims; and the possibility of his being convicted.
On Monday, before Welby’s announcement, Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, told the BBC: “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.’”
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