Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has resigned from his position.
Welby, the global head of the Anglican Church, resigned on Tuesday November 12 over his handling of a child abuse case.
He was said to have covered up the abuse of over 100 boys and young men by a deceased member of the church.
“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty the King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury,” the clergyman said in a statement on his official account.
Welby came under pressure to quit in the last few days after an independent review into the abuse committed by a deceased British lawyer, John Smyth, alleged to be a serial abuser linked to the Church of England.
The independent report, released on November 7, indicated a cover up of a serious crime committed by the late lawyer.
It said despite repeated efforts by individuals to bring Smyth’s actions to light, the church’s response was inadequate.
In his resignation letter, Welby said the review “has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuse of John Smyth.”
He said the last few days have renewed his long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England.
The clergyman said for nearly 12 years, he struggled to introduce improvements and that it is left for others to judge what has been done.
He added, “When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly than an appropriate resolution would follow. It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.”
Welby acknowledged the impact of the review’s findings, as well as the pain endured by the victims and the failures of the church to protect those in its care.
“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,” he said.
Welby, 67, is a former oil executive. He resigned two years ahead of the official retirement age of 70 for bishops in the Church of England.
He was appointed in 2013 though he was ordained as a priest in 1993. His tenure has been characterised by disagreement over same-sex relationship, which has caused disunity in the church.
Smyth’s crime
Smyth perpetrated traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks on about 130 boys and young men. The crime spanned from the 1970s up until his death in South Africa in 2018, reports said.
He allegedly abused his own family members, as well as attendees of evangelical Christian summer camps he ran for students from British’s prestigious private colleges in the 1970s and 1980s.
Welby also worked at the summer camps which Smyth was running.
In 2014, Smyth’s abuse was exposed by Channel 4 News.
When Welby rose to the highest rank, he told the media that he did not ensure the allegations were pursued as energetically and remorsefully as they should have been.
About Church of England
The Church of England traces its history back to the arrival of Christianity in Britain in the 2nd century.
Henry VIII began the process of creating the church after his split with the Pope in the 1530’s. The king was anxious to ensure a male heir after his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had borne him only a daughter.
The Church of England is the mother of the Anglican Communion and the largest Christian church in Britain and the eight largest church in the world. It has about 26 million members.
The church has a large endowment of 8.7 billion pounds which generates approximately one billion pounds a year in income.
