The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has announced he will resign, following days of pressure after a damning review into the most prolific abuser associated with the Church of England.
The independent Makin Review concluded that barrister John Smyth might have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally alerted authorities in 2013. Mr Welby had apologised but stated that he would not resign, following the review’s publication last week.
But in a statement on Tuesday, he said: “Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury. The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow. It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
Mr Welby said he believed his resignation was in the church’s best interests. He said: “I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve.”
Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives. A lay reader who led Christian summer camps, Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police and was “never brought to justice for the abuse”, the review said.
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. The archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” 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”.