(Source: Reuters)

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, has resigned “in sorrow”.

It says it failed to ensure a proper investigation into allegations of abuse by a Christian summer camp volunteer decades ago.

Welby, also the Church of England’s most senior cleric, has faced calls to resign after a report last week found he did not do enough to stop one of the Church’s most prolific serial abusers.

Commentators and church historians said it was the first time an Anglican archbishop had resigned over an abuse scandal.

In his resignation letter, Welby said he had to accept “personal and institutional responsibility” for a lack of action on “heinous abuses”.

“The last few days have renewed my long-felt and deep sense of shame at the Church of England’s historic safeguarding failures,” said Welby.

“As I resign, I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”

Welby’s tenure spanned a decade of major upheaval in which he was forced to navigate differences over gay rights and women clergy between liberal churches, especially in North America and Britain, and their conservative counterparts, especially in Africa.

Anglican churches in African countries such as Uganda and Nigeria will welcome his resignation after last year they said they no longer trusted him.

His successor’s main challenges will include holding together the increasingly fractious worldwide Anglican community and trying to reverse the decline in church attendance, which has fallen by a fifth in Britain since 2019.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he respected the archbishop’s decision to resign.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the Church’s second-ranking clergy, called for Welby’s resignation “the right and honorable thing to do.”

ABUSES “ORIFICES” IN CHRISTIAN CAMPS

Welby, 68, one of the most political archbishops of modern times who has criticized some of the former government’s policies, resigned five days after the independent Makin report singled him out for criticism over his handling of abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s.

The report said that John Smyth, a British lawyer, subjected more than 100 boys and young men to “brutal and horrible” physical and sexual abuse over a period of 40 years.

Smyth beat some victims with up to 800 strokes of the cane and provided diapers to absorb the bleeding, the report said.

He would then drape himself over his victims, sometimes kissing their necks or backs.

He ran Christian camps in Dorset, England, where Welby also worked before, he was ordained.

Smyth moved to Africa in 1984 and continued to commit the abuse until close to his death in 2018, the report said.

The Church of England was found to be aware of the allegations of sexual abuse at the highest level in 2013 and Welby became aware of the allegations at the latest in the same year after he became archbishop.

A 2013 police investigation could have led to Smyth being charged before he died, the report, commissioned in 2019, said.

Welby said he had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations before 2013, but the report concluded this was unlikely, accusing him of failing “personal and moral responsibility” to ensure a proper investigation.

Richard Rex, professor of history at Cambridge, said by 2013 any bishop should have realized that such accusations should be “treated with utmost seriousness and care”.

According to church rules, the task of managing the choice of Welby’s successor rests with a body of clergy.

It presents the names of a preferred candidate and an alternative candidate to the Prime Minister, who then advises the monarch on the appointment.

Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester, Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich and Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford, have all been tipped to succeed Welby and become the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.

Snow abstained from a church assembly vote on blessing gay couples, while Usher is in favor of gay rights.

Francis-Dehqani was born in Iran and spoke about how her brother was killed in the Iranian revolution.

She would be the first woman to hold the position.