A senior bishop in the Church of England has called for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign following a damning report into a barrister thought to have been the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the church.
Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley described Justin Welby’s position as “untenable” and claimed the church was in danger of “losing complete credibility”.
“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’,”she told the BBC.
She added that Mr Welby’s resignation would amount to a “very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.
A petition by some members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – has gathered more than 1,500 signatures urging Mr Welby to stand down over his “failures” to alert authorities about John Smyth QC’s “abhorrent” abuse of children and young men.
The church leader has “lost the confidence of his clergy” and “his position is completely untenable”, said a vicar within the church, who claims to have suffered similar abuse during his time at school to the children reportedly affected by Mr Smyth.
But Mr Welby has refused to step down, telling Channel 4 that he has thought about the issue for a long time and taken advice from senior colleagues before ultimately concluding that it is more appropriate for him to retain his position.
“I have given it (resigning) a lot of thought and have taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues, and, no, I am not going to resign,” he told the broadcaster.
The Makin review into Smyth’s abuse, published last week, concluded that he might have been brought to justice had the Archbishop of Canterbury formally reported it to police a decade ago.
Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and so was “never brought to justice for the abuse”, the review said.
Across five decades in three different countries and involving as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa, Smyth is said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives.
The Archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013 but acknowledged the review had found that after its wider exposure that year he had “personally failed to ensure” it was “energetically investigated”.
Mr Welby knew Smyth because of his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence that he had “maintained any significant contact” with the barrister in later years.
It said while he knew him and “did have reason to have some concern about him”, this was not the same as suspecting he had committed severe abuses, and concluded it was “not possible to establish” whether Mr Welby knew of the severity of the abuses in the UK before 2013.
The report said Smyth “could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013″.
It said “had that been done, on the balance of probabilities” Smyth could have been brought to justice “at a much earlier point” than the Hampshire Police investigation in early 2017.
It added: “Opportunities to establish whether he continued to pose an abusive threat in South Africa were missed because of these inactions by senior church officers.”
The petition states: “Given his role in allowing abuse to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable.
“We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the good of the Church—and we share this determination across our traditions.
“With sadness we do not think there is any alternative to his immediate resignation if the process of change and healing is to start now.”
Giles Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, west London, described it as a “terrible situation”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There’s a petition going round now, which many people are signing and this is from all parts of the church.
“I’m afraid he’s really lost the confidence of his clergy, he’s lost the confidence of many of his bishops and his position is completely untenable.”
Dr Joanne Grenfell, the Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop, however, has declined to call for Mr Welby’s resignation.
Speaking over the weekend, she welcomed his apology and praised his commitment to the church.
“As I said, I really appreciate that the Archbishop has wholeheartedly apologised for what he could’ve and should’ve done differently in 2013,” she said.
“I also recognise his commitment over the time of his tenure as Archbishop to really having tried to change safeguarding.
“I think there’s still an awful lot to do but I do think that builds on some of the changes that we have seen over the last 10 years.”
