Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the day-to-day leader of the Church of England, has resigned, following a damning report on his handling of child abuse cases involving prominent Church member John Smyth.
The report, commissioned by the church’s national safeguarding team and led by former social services director Keith Makin, found that Welby had failed to pass on information that could have led to an earlier investigation of Smyth’s abuses.
John Smyth, a barrister and prominent evangelical Christian, was revealed to be one of the Church of England’s most prolific serial child abusers, reportedly subjecting as many as 130 victims to severe and illegal treatment. The Makin Report found that Smyth’s “abhorrent abuse” could have been exposed as early as 2013, had Welby taken further steps to ensure the police investigated initial concerns.
Smyth’s abuse, primarily occurring through Christian summer camps, went unpunished during his lifetime; he died in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire police.
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Welby acknowledged that it had become evident he “must take personal and institutional responsibility” for the “long and retraumatising” period following his awareness of the allegations in 2013, during which Smyth was not held accountable and survivors were repeatedly let down by the Church of England.
The case prompted widespread condemnation from both government officials and senior clergy. Before Welby’s resignation, UK prime minister Keir Starmer addressed the situation at the COP29 summit, stating that the victims had been “very, very badly” let down. While he acknowledged that the Church would ultimately decide Welby’s fate, Starmer stressed that victims’ suffering should remain central to the conversation.
Welby also faced backlash from within the church itself. The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, publicly called for his resignation, stating his leadership had lost the confidence of the clergy. Adding to the pressure, Stephen Cherry, dean of King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, criticised Welby’s failure to uphold the Church’s trust and confidence, pointing to a growing rift between the archbishop and the community he leads.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was among the outspoken critics, condemning Welby’s tenure as a “complete catastrophe.” He told The Telegraph:
If I had a member of staff in parliament who I knew was committing sexual crimes and I chose to turn a blind eye to it, then I think the [House of Commons] standards committee would suspend me within a week and there’d be a by-election. I’d be forced to resign.
Justin Welby was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. The position is the most senior in England’s established church, after the monarch. The archbishop is also the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
During his tenure, Welby has been criticised for taking liberal-left political positions on contentious issues. In 2018—two years after the Brexit referendum—Welby praised the European Union as “the greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire” and condemned rising nationalism and Brexit as threats to peace and unity in Europe. He implied that Brexit supporters were susceptible to “fear of the other,” a comment criticised as out of touch with the sentiments of those who voted to leave the EU.
A year earlier, Welby linked the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president to fascism, asserting that these developments were part of a “nationalist, populist, or even fascist” political tradition.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Welby referenced the Nazis during a House of Lords debate on the previous UK government’s Rwanda immigration scheme.
Throughout his tenure, Welby’s propensity for politically charged and sometimes inflammatory comparisons has drawn criticism, often sparking debate about the role of Anglican clerics in political matters.
Now, amid declining church attendance, Welby leaves a legacy clouded by scandal and missteps.
