Anglican leaders faced pressure on Wednesday to speed up reforms after the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, over a damning report concluding the Church of England covered up a case of serial abuse.

Welby announced his resignation on Tuesday after a chorus of criticism over his role in the decades-long scandal, prompted by the publication last week of the findings of an independent inquiry.

It concluded that the Church of England — the mother church of Anglicanism — covered up “prolific, brutal and appalling” abuse by John Smyth, a lawyer who ran evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s.

The inquest found Welby “could and should” have formally reported Smyth’s “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual assaults” to the authorities in 2013, when he claims he first learned of them.

The report follows another review published in February, which said the Church “must take urgent action to restore trust and confidence in its safeguarding” after other cases of abuse emerged.

The Bishop of Birkenhead, Julie Conalty, said on Wednesday that Welby’s resignation “will not solve the problem” as she called for “institutional change”.

“Quite possibly other people should go,” Conalty told BBC radio, adding that he would not “name names”.

“It’s frustrating to me because in many ways I’ve worked hard to make churches safer places,” she said.

“We still have this institutional problem where we don’t put victims and survivors at the center. In some ways, we are not a safe institution.”

– Responsibility –

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the Church’s second-highest bishop, said on Wednesday that “people must answer” for the cover-up, insisting that the recommended reforms are being implemented.

“We do what needs to be done through our synodical processes,” he added, referring to the General Synod, an assembly of bishops, clergy and laity that meets at least twice a year to debate and decide Church laws.

“I’m frustrated … that this takes time, but those things happen,” Cottrell said, adding that his next meeting in early 2025 will address the issues.

Victims of Smyth’s abuse have called for additional resignations.

Mark Stibbe, a former vicar and author, told Channel 4 News he wanted “more responsibility”.

“People are taking responsibility for being silent when they should have been speaking up,” he said.

The Smyth report, led by former head of social services Keith Makin, found that some Church officials knew about the abuse claims in the 1980s, while those “at the highest level” had been aware since mid-2013.

Smyth, who had lived in Africa since 1984, died aged 75 in South Africa in 2018 while being investigated by British police and never faced criminal charges.

The Church of England has been the target of abuse claims in the recent past, but not on the same scale as in the Roman Catholic Church.

A 2020 report — part of a wider independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in various institutions — identified nearly 400 convicted offenders associated with the Church of England from the 1940s to 2018.

Their convictions related to child sexual abuse.

Richard Scorer, the lawyer for some of Smyth’s victims, said that in recent years more cases of sexual abuse had come from within the Church of England than from the Catholic Church.

“That probably changed about a decade ago because the cases seemed to start coming from other churches and particularly from the Church of England,” he told Times Radio.

“I think the reality now … is that the problem was probably as big in the Church of England as it was in the Catholic Church.”

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