A Church of England bishop on Monday called for the resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, days after a report concluded that he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into claims of sadistic abuse decades ago at Christian summer camps.
An independent review last week said that the archbishop had taken insufficient action following reports of “abhorrent” abuse of more than 100 boys and young men starting in the 1970s by John Smyth, a prominent British lawyer.
From July 2013, the Church of England knew at the highest level about the abuse, the report said, while Mr. Welby became aware of the claims against Mr. Smyth around August 2013, months after he became archbishop.
Mr. Smyth could and should have been reported to the police in 2013, the report said, 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 a conviction being brought against him. Mr. Smyth 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 coverup,” it said.
In a statement in response to Mr. Makin’s report, the archbishop said: “I had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013. Nevertheless the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated.” He repeated an apology he had made to the review itself, for “not meeting quickly with victims after the full horror of the abuse was revealed” in a 2017 Channel 4 investigation.
“I promised to see them and failed until 2020. This was wrong,” he said.
On Monday, the Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, called on Mr. Welby, the head of the Church of England and the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, to stand aside.
In a rare public intervention by a senior member of the clergy, she told the BBC that Mr. Welby’s resignation would not “solve the safeguarding problem,” but it would “be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn.”
She added: “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.’”
Mr. Welby, 68, has held his position since early 2013 and is scheduled to retire in 2026.
Last week’s independent report, compiled by Keith Makin, a former social services director, described Mr. Smyth as “arguably, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England.”
Operating in three different countries, Mr. Smyth inflicted physical, sexual and psychological attacks on as many as 130 victims. Mr. Welby said in 2017 that he had met Mr. Smyth but “wasn’t a close friend of his.”
The 2017 report by Channel 4 detailed how Mr. 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 severe beatings.
According to the Makin report, Mr. Smyth told his victims “that the way to Christ was through suffering,” and subjected them to “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks.” The report added: “The impact of that abuse is impossible to overstate and has permanently marked the lives of his victims.”
Giles Fraser, a broadcaster and Church of England clergyman, who was attacked as a child by another abuser, also called on the archbishop to stand aside, in an article published online on Monday.
“Welby can’t survive this,” he wrote. “And his resignation should send a necessary shock wave through the Church of England like nothing else could. No Archbishop would ever again treat the whole matter so lightly.”
In his statement, the archbishop said he was “deeply sorry” that the abuse had taken place, adding: “I am so sorry that in places where these young men, and boys, should have felt safe and where they should have experienced God’s love for them, they were subjected to physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse.”
The post Bishop Calls on Anglican Leader to Quit Over Handling of Abuse Scandal appeared first on New York Times.
