What I was going to tell you is that the Archbishop of Canterbury might resign while you’re reading this piece.
In the event he quit before I’d even finished writing it.
I thought we might at least have had until the evening news before the announcement was made. The King had to be found, after all, to give his permission.
And there was always room for some confusion.
When a previous Archbishop, George Carey, tried to stand down, the Queen thought he meant her.
Lord Carey went in for an audience and told the Queen: “Your Majesty the time has come.”
The country’s most senior cleric got short shrift. “You people come and go,“ she told him. “I can’t resign, I can’t surrender – I’ve got to keep going.”
Carey clarified it was him he was suggesting should jack it in not her and added: “The Lord tells me at the age of 70 I’ve got to go.”
Justin Welby is 68, but there was no mistaking this time that the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury needed to be offski.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has resigned from the role
PA
Had Welby been a Cabinet minister, charity boss, captain of industry or head teacher and not the head of the Anglican Communion he would have been off long ago.
Not properly pursuing the allegations of sex crimes against children as soon as becoming aware of them is about as serious as it gets. That’s why the Archbishop’s position was untenable.
Which, in some respects, is a pity. Because until this emerged, Welby seemed to be one of the best holders of the Canterbury See for some time, determined to drag a reluctant Church into the 21st Century.
It was thanks to him that the first female bishop was consecrated in 2015 – Libby Lane in Stockport – and had she not been, Welby would quite likely have resigned back then, so insistent was he that women should be allowed to hold the Church’s top positions.
He has supported same-sex marriage, although it remains a stain on the C of E that couples still cannot hold their weddings in church. But that’s the nub of the C of E’s problem.
It tends to march around 30 years behind the society it purports to represent which is why young people have turned their backs on it.
The Church’s evangelical wing is keen on women but not on gays while for anglo-catholics it’s the other way round.
Underneath it all, high church clergy resent women priests.
It’s as if they have never heard of Mary Magdalene who gets many more column inches in the Gospels than the male apostles. If Jesus had a chief disciple then she was it.
The Church is also as concerned about reputational damage as any big, multinational brand. That’s why it goes to such great lengths to cover scandals up.
But the one Welby lost his job over is worse than most. Barrister John Smyth, who died in 2018, is accused of assaulting and abusing around 130 young boys from the 1970s onwards.
He allegedly identified his victims at Christian camps and in sessions at leading public schools before taking them to his Winchester home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed until they bled.
Welby attended some of those camps though there is no indication whatsoever he was complicit in or knew about the abuse. He has previously described Smyth as “delightful and charming”. The Makin review said there was no evidence Welby and Smyth had “maintained any significant contact” after that, and the archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of the abuse” before 2013″.
A report into the horrors Smyth committed says that, from July 2013, the Church of England knew “at the highest level” about them. Welby became the country’s top churchman four months earlier.
Had he reported what he knew at the time, Smyth would not have been able to continue offending. Welby admitted he “personally failed”. That was the point at which he should have hung up his crozier.
He has now said what he should have said last week: “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
The Church likes to think it is above politics. In this instance, Welby should have taken a lesson from shamed politicians. At least they know when the game is up.
In a resignation letter Justin Welby said: “Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign.
“The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuse 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 re-traumatising period between 2013 and 2024.
“The last few days have renewed my long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England. For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done.
“In the meantime, I will follow through on my commitment to meet victims. I will delegate all my other current responsibilities for safeguarding until the necessary risk assessment process is complete.”