The head of the Church of England announced he will resign after a stinging report found he did not act quickly enough to stop a serial pedophile.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — who as head of the church also presided over the coronation of King Charles III and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and married Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — said he is stepping down over the revolting crimes of then-church-camp operator John Smyth.
Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday, when the archbishop’s refusal to accept responsibility for his failure to report the abuse in England and in Africa in 2013 kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church. By Tuesday afternoon, Welby acknowledged that mistake.
“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in the statement announcing his resignation. “I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honored to serve.”
Welby added that the Makin Report, an independent probe into the sick scandal that was released Friday, “has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses” that Smyth, who died in 2018, committed in Britain and South Africa.
Boys and young men sexually abused
As many as 130 boys and young men in Britain and Africa are believed to have been sexually abused by Smyth, who operated children’s camps connected to the Church of England.
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow,” said Welby, who also leads the global Anglican Communion, of which the US’s Episcopal Church is a member.
