Archbishop of Canterbury under fire after sexual abuse cover-up scandal in Church of England

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is facing mounting pressure to step down after a report revealed years of institutional cover-ups by the Church of England, allowing a known abuser to operate unchecked for years.

The 251-page independent review divulged the details of the church’s investigation into John Smyth, a former church volunteer who preyed on young men and boys at Christian camps.

Smyth, who died in 2018, is believed to have subjected at least 115 victims to what the report calls “appalling” sexual violence over five decades — something that Archbishop Welby was made aware of in 2013 when he became the church’s top prelate.

Despite warnings as far back as the early 1980s, church officials took no substantive action to stop his abuse, according to the report. When Archbishop Welby became aware of the situation, he failed to take sufficient steps in reporting Smyth to the police, the report states.

“In effect, three and a half years were lost, a time within which John Smyth could have been brought to justice and any abuse he was committing in South Africa discovered and stopped,” the report says.

Evidence cited in the report reveals that the abuse continued in South Africa until Smyth’s death.

The archbishop has offered a “profound apology” — not only for his own failures but for the “wickedness, concealment, and abuse” perpetuated within the church, a Welby spokeswoman told U.K. newspaper The Times. She added that the archbishop remains “horrified” over Smyth’s actions.

The report’s authors conclude that Archbishop Welby bore a “personal and moral responsibility to pursue this further, whatever the policies at play at the time required.”

Since the report’s release, more than 1,800 people have signed a Change.org petition by three members of the General Synod, the church’s governing body, calling for Archbishop Welby’s resignation. But on Thursday, the archbishop told journalists that though he’d considered resigning, he has ultimately decided against it.

“I have given it a lot of thought,” he said. “And no, I am not going to resign,” he told Channel 4 News.

Some church officials say resignation is inevitable. “I think it seems increasingly unlikely that the archbishop of Canterbury can survive in the post, given the growing chorus of calls for his resignation from amongst his own clergy,” the Rev. Giles Fraser, a vicar and columnist, posted on social media.

Stephen Kuhrt, vicar of Christ Church, New Malden, said a delay in the archbishop’s resignation would be a mistake.

“Now is not the time for the classic Anglican fudge, where he decides to retire in the coming weeks. He should resign specifically on the basis of his response to the John Smyth case and refuse the customary peerage given to ex-Archbishops,” Mr. Kuhrt wrote in a fiery post on Grace + Truth.

He added that resignation would be a crucial symbol of exposing “the culture which perpetuates safeguarding failures in our church.”

In 1982, church officials initially documented Smyth’s abusive behavior in an internal report but concealed its findings, according to the independent review.

Smyth was allowed to move to Zimbabwe in 1984 and later South Africa, where he continued abusing young men until his death in 2018 — all while church leaders were aware of his history.

In 2017, after an investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 made the abuse scandal public, authorities prepared to extradite and question Smyth. He died before they could bring him to justice.

The archbishop’s spokeswoman has clarified his public stance to the media in a statement, insisting he had “no awareness or suspicion” of the abuse until 2013 — a fact that has reportedly eased the archbishop’s conscience in deciding to remain within his position.

Other church officials have cautioned against making Archbishop Welby a “scapegoat,” pointing out that church leaders had known about Smyth’s abuse long before 2013. Critics argue that the archbishop’s failure to act in 2013 is part of a larger pattern of institutional inaction that has irreparably harmed the church’s credibility.

The archbishop’s office on Monday restated his intent to remain in his post and his hope that the independent review “supports the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world.”