England’s top Archbishop resigns over sex abuse scandal

A damning report about sadistic beatings of boys has forced Justin Welby to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury

Justin Welby has resigned as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest-ranking clergyman in the Church of England, taking full responsibility for inaction regarding a late pastor who had abused children for decades without facing criminal charges. 

Welby’s resignation follows the publication of the Makin Review, an independent investigation into the decades of “sadistic beatings” of schoolboys by youth pastor John J. Smyth, who died in 2018. 

“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in his resignation letter on Tuesday, which was posted on his official website. “As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”

“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honored to serve,” Welby wrote, adding that the recent days have “renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures” of the church.

Welby also said he had been informed of accusations against Smyth in 2013, when he became archbishop, but “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.”

Smyth was a Canadian-born attorney who got involved in the Church of England’s children’s ministry. He died in 2018, while under investigation for abuse. No criminal charges were ever brought against him.

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“The abuse at the hands of John Smyth was prolific and abhorrent. Words cannot adequately describe the horror of what transpired,” Keith Makin, the former UK government official who led the independent review of the abuse claims, said in the introduction to his report, which was published this week.

“Despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a coverup,” Makin added.

According to the report, Smyth used his position as a lay preacher working with youth to select boys and young men for his “clearly sexually motivated, sadistic regime” of vicious beatings in the 1970s and 1980s. He would bring his victims home and flogged them with a garden cane, some to the point where they had to wear diapers because of the bleeding.

 “We are deeply sorry for the horrific abuse inflicted by the late John Smyth and its lifelong effects, already spanning more than 40 years,” Bishop Joanne Grenfell and National Director of Safeguarding Alexander Kubeyinje said in a statement following the report’s publication.

Grenfell and Kubeyinje added that they were “appalled” that some of the Church of England clergy who knew about Smyth’s abuses decided to stay silent, fearing reputational damage to the organization. 

“It was wrong for a seemingly privileged group from an elite background to decide that the needs of victims should be set aside, and that Smyth’s abuse should not therefore be brought to light,” they wrote.

The Makin Review estimated that at least 100 young men had been victimized by Smyth, including the future Bishop Andrew Watson. 

The Church of England was established in the 16th century, during the schism between King Henry VIII and the Roman Catholic Church. While the English monarch is its titular head, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the highest-ranking clergyman.