Justin Welby has resigned over the John Smyth sex, physical and psychological abuse scandal. Welby was not directly involved in the abuse but he knew about it and almost certainly covered it up to protect the institution and his cronies, although he has denied the cover-up and pleaded incompetence instead.
Other heads in the Church of England should probably roll but the ecclesiastical old boys’ network is undoubtedly circling the wagons.
Much as I have disagreed with Welby’s performance during his tenure, I feel rather sorry for the man. Based on his experience as an oil executive, he has tried to run the church as a business, and it hasn’t worked because the church is not a business.
Welby tried to bring reconciliation between irreconcilable parties by telling each what they wanted to hear, earning him the mantle of hypocrite rather than reconciler.
Who will go – and deserves to go – next, I wonder. The Pope?
From here:
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigned Tuesday after an investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.
Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday, when release of the inquiry’s findings kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the 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 the statement announcing his resignation. “I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honored to serve.”
Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, said Monday that Welby’s position was “untenable” after some members of the church’s national assembly started a petition calling on him to step down because he had “lost the confidence of his clergy.”
But the strongest outcry had come from the victims of the late John Smyth, a prominent attorney who abused teenage boys and young men at Christian summer camps in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades. Andrew Morse, who was repeatedly beaten by Smyth over a period of five years, said that resigning was a chance for Welby to start repairing the damage caused by the church’s handling of historical abuse cases more broadly.
“Welby was not directly involved in the abuse but he knew about it and almost certainly covered it up to protect the institution and his cronies, although he has denied the cover-up and pleaded incompetence instead.”
David, you are calling the man a liar. That cannot be right. Consider emending your text. Yes, I mean that.
Agree. The threshold for judging him to be a liar, rather than gracefully accepting his confession of incompetence, should be beyond possibility, beyond even plausible, but that closer to what is necessary for a verdict of guilt in a matter near being criminal. That is, beyond a reasonable doubt.
The BBC seems to be under the impression that Welby is bending the truth somewhat:
And from the Makin report:
From NBC:
Welby knew about the coverup in 2013. That’s not incompetence, it’s acquiescence and participation.
According to the 251-page report released last week, people who knew of John Smyth’s abuse in the early 1980s include prominent Evangelicals, e.g. Hugh Palmer, Michael Green, and George Carey … (Daniel Silliman, “Church of England Leaders Kept Evangelical Beatings Secret”, Christianity Today, November 12, 2024).
Gavin Ashenden thinks Welby is lying – and incompetent. Go to time 4:00.