November 13, 2024

Justin Welby has not said when he will leave. But replacing him won’t be easy. Victims of decades of church abuse are calling for root and branch reforms.

29 m

About 18 months after he anointed the king, Justin Welby asked him for permission to resign, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern history to be forced out.

Justin Welby wrote on X:

“Makin magazine exposed the long-standing conspiracy of silence about John Smyth’s atrocious abuses.

When I was informed in 2013 and told that the police had been notified, I mistakenly believed that a proper resolution would follow.

It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.”

Statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury. pic.twitter.com/pIIR1911QU

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) November 12, 2024

Smyth’s victims told us this was just the beginning of the church facing his legacy of abuse.

Seven years ago, Channel 4 News revealed the details of Smyth’s brutal beatings in three separate countries.

18 m

The church ordered former director of social services Keith Makin to conduct a review. Published last week, it accused the church of a cover-up and accused Justin Welby himself of not doing enough to stop the abuse.

Last week, however, the Archbishop’s refusal to stand down sparked anger from his opponents in the Church and from the victims themselves.

A victim we call Graham played a crucial role in the Archbishop’s death. Graham reported his own abuse to the church in 2012. This culminated in Justin Welby himself being informed the following year that the Bishop of Ely had written to his counterpart in Cape Town, detailing the seriousness of Smyth’s horrific activities.

In an interview with me at Lambeth Palace last week, Justin Welby accepted what he called his own “truly shameful failure” to do enough to stop John Smyth’s abuse. Smyth continued to abuse boys and young men in South Africa until his death in 2018.

But the church coverage actually started much earlier – in the 1980s.

Guide Nyachuru, 16, was found dead in a swimming pool at a Christian holiday camp run by Smyth, who was later charged with manslaughter. The case was solved.

Last week, Makin Review revealed shocking details about Smyth’s summer camps in Zimbabwe with “Reports of regular abuse by John Smyth, including beatings with a table tennis bat, forced nudity, naked swimming and showering.”

He also gave “regular masturbation lectures” and slept “in the dormitory area with boys.”

However, the abuse in Zimbabwe could have been stopped if a secret report by a British vicar in 1982 – ten years before Guide’s death – had been acted upon. Almost 30 years after Guide’s tragic death, Justin Welby has written to his family apologizing.

Justin Welby claims that although he exchanged Christmas cards with Smyth in the 1980s and 1990s and even gave money to Smyth’s work in Zimbabwe, he did not know about the abuse until 2013. But the Makin Review makes clear that several bishops and senior church leaders I knew long before then.

Justin Welby has not said when he will leave. But replacing him won’t be easy. Victims of decades of church abuse are calling for root and branch reforms. Whoever becomes Archbishop of Canterbury may find the miter-wearing head uneasy.