Archbishop of Canterbury resigns over Church’s Abuse Cover-up

(Staff) ON NOV. 12 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, resigned amid allegations that he did little to stop a predatory layman from serially abusing as many as 130 boys and young men in Britian and Africa over four decades

Posted Date : 2024-12-21 22:05:00

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Description: In 2013, Justin Welby “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.”

(Staff) ON NOV. 12 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, resigned amid allegations that he did little to stop a predatory layman from serially abusing as many as 130 boys and young men in Britian and Africa over four decades.

According to a long-awaited report by Keith Makin published Nov. 7, John Smyth’s “brutal and horrific” abuse was covered up within the Church of England for decades.

Smyth was a prominent British lawyer who abused boys whom he met at Christian summer camps in Dorset, England in the 1970s and early 1980s. Smyth moved to Africa in 1984 and continued to carry out the abuse until close to his death in Cape Town in 2018, the report said. He died before he could be extradited to Britain.

Smyth was a senior member of Christian charity the Iwerne Trust and is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser associated with the Church of England, according to the independent review.

The Church of England knew at the highest level about the sexual abuse claims at the camps in 2013 and Welby became aware, at the latest, about the accusations in the same year, shortly after he became archbishop, according to the Makin Report.

If the claims had been reported to the police in 2013, there could have been a full investigation and Smyth might have faced charges before he died, the report said.

Smyth is said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks.

The Iwerne Trust conducted its own investigation in 1982. It found Smyth would take pupils to his home near Winchester and carry out lashings with a garden cane in his sound-proofed shed. It said eight of the boys received a total of 14,000 lashes, while two more received 8,000 strokes between them over three years. The charity called the practice “horrific” but the claims were not reported to police until 2013 – more than 30 years later.

Justin Welby says at that point in 2013, he “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.”

Following the publication of the 253-page Makin report on Smyth – which was critical of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s handling of the case – calls for Welby’s resignation came from prominent progressive Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley of Newcastle; two leaders of the evangelical Church Society; and the Rev. Canon Dr. Giles Fraser, vicar of St. Anne’s Church, Kew, and a columnist for Unherd.com.

On Nov. 9, The Rev. Robert Thompson, a member of General Synod, launched an online petition calling for his resignation together with the Rev. Ian Paul, a prominent evangelical, and the Rev. Marcus Walker of Save the Parish. Late on Nov. 11, it had received nearly 9,000 digital signatures.

Welby said he had been advised by top church officials not to resign but as pressure mounted, he did so five days later.

Welby resigned “in sorrow” on Nov. 12, saying he had failed to ensure there was a proper investigation into allegations of abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps decades ago.

“The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England,” Welby said in his resignation statement.

“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”

And the abuse was truly “horrific.” Smyth beat some victims with up to 800 strokes of a cane and supplied diapers to absorb the bleeding, the report said. He would then drape himself over his victims, sometimes kissing them on the neck or back.

Smyth attempted to be ordained in the Church of England, but was turned away at least once, the report said.

Rev. Dr Timothy Howles, at the University of Oxford, told BBC News that the institutional response has “clearly been flawed, and has retraumatized victims over the last few years.” He continued, “I think it’s one of the most serious, long-standing patterns of abuse many of us will have read about.” After 2013, when Welby was informed about the abuse, Howles said there has been a “lack of curiosity on the part of senior Church of England officials who could have inquired with much more speed and urgency.”

 

How close were Welby and Smyth?

Smyth became chair of the Iwerne Trust, which funded the Christian camps, and Welby worked at them as a dormitory officer before he was ordained. Smyth was 14 years Welby’s senior.

Welby apologized for “failures and omissions” but said he had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations before 2013. The Makin Report concluded this was unlikely, accusing him of failing in his “personal and moral responsibility” to ensure a proper investigation.

The Report says Welby and Smyth were together at multiple Christian holiday camps run by the Iwerne Trust, between Summer 1975 and August 1979.

“We have explored with Justin Welby his relationship at that time with John Smyth. He knew John Smyth from the Iwerne camps and was in John Smyth’s dormitory for two camps,” the report states.

“He has described being ‘impressed’ by John Smyth and reacting to his apparent power of intellect and charismatic [in the lay sense] personality. He says that they were never close, however.”

The Report also says he recalls “making donations” to John Smyth to help with his ministry in Zimbabwe, “but cannot remember the details of this, timing or amounts.”

Graham Nicholls – director of Affinity, a church partnership group – told BBC News that Welby “didn’t move far enough or fast enough,” adding Welby had a “reasonable” degree of knowledge about the abuse years ago. Nicholls added there’s a “sense that the church didn’t care about those victims.”

 

Zimbabwe

In 1984 Smyth fled England for Zimbabwe and lived there for 17 years. The five Anglican dioceses in Zimbabwe are part of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.

The Makin Report includes a letter from Sir Jamie Colman – who then chaired the Zambezi Trust (UK), which oversaw Smyth’s activities in Zimbabwe – offering reassurance that Smyth was now subject to a “pastoral arrangement” with an ordained minister, and citing scripture in defence of his not being “disqualified.”

The Makin Report describes Smyth as continuing his abuse of young men and boys in Zimbabwe through a project called the Zambesi Holiday Camp. A passage about his activities in 1992 says this: “At least six Zambesi holiday camps take place throughout the year, led by John Smyth. Reports of regular abuse by John Smyth, including beating with table tennis bat, enforced nudity, naked swimming, and showering. John Smyth gives regular lectures about masturbation. He sleeps in dormitory area with boys rather than in the separate staff quarters.”

The Report also says that in December 1992, “Guide Nyachuru, a 16-year-old boy, tragically dies whilst at Zambesi Holiday Camp. He is found in the swimming pool by a gardener early in the morning.”

 

South Africa

In 2001 Smyth moved to Cape Town and lived there for 17 more years until his death in 2018.

On Nov. 17 Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa preached at a service in Cape Town in which he said: “The details of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth in the 1980s and 1990s are enough to make you sick. Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to say that no one is beyond the love of God, that no one is irredeemably evil, but I have to say that Smyth’s vicious and foul abuse of young men tests that belief.”

Makgoba continued: “I am consulting the Safe and Inclusive Church Commission, which pursues abuse cases vigorously, as well as our Chancellors and Registrars, who give us legal advice, to work out the terms of reference of a review of whether the diocese, and I personally, met our obligation to keep you safe, and what we could have done better.”

 

Theology twisted

Makin also identifies “theological differences within the Church” as vulnerable to exploitation by abusers, saying that Smyth “changed his allegiances” to the Charismatic wing of the Church after facing challenge in the Conservative Evangelical one.

In 2017, the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Rev’d Andrew Watson, himself a victim of Smyth, expressed the “concern of myself and some of my fellow survivors that we are seen as people and not used as pawns in some political or religious game. Abusers espouse all theologies and none; and absolutely nothing that happened in the Smyth shed was the natural fruit of any Christian theology that I’ve come across before or since. It was abuse perpetrated by a misguided, manipulative, and dangerous man, tragically playing on the longing of his young victims to live godly lives.”

After the Makin Report was published, Watson said he stood by his comment, but said that he agreed entirely with Makin’s conclusion that the Iwerne regime “enabled” Smyth’s abuse.

The Vicar of the New Forest Edge Benefice, in Winchester diocese, the Rev. Dr Ben Sargent, said:

“As I speak to Evangelical friends and colleagues about the Makin review, there is a widespread feeling of lament and shame at our cultural complicity in the failure to seek justice for victims and survivors of John Smyth,” he said on Nov. 19. “Many recognise the truth of the observations about reputation management and the need to protect ‘the work.’ All are immensely grateful to victims and survivors for their courage in bringing to light deeds of great darkness.

“It is true that abuse does not belong to one part of the Church. Abusers can take any value or ideal, theological or not, and manipulate it to their own ends. Perhaps Evangelical doctrine has proven especially vulnerable to this, but it also calls us to work together to make the Church a safe place for everyone.”

Among the teachings of Evangelical doctrine is the sovereignty of God, Sargent said, which meant “that ‘the work’ does not need protecting, especially by lies and wickedness.” Substitutionary atonement, meanwhile, meant that “no one should ever be told that they need to suffer in order to atone for their sin,” while the priesthood of all believers “should make Evangelicals rightly wary of exalting anyone to a position above criticism and scrutiny.”

The idea of common grace, he said, “tells us that we have no right to a siege mentality – us against ‘the world’ – when it comes to safeguarding. Wisdom, integrity, and justice belong to the diocesan safeguarding officer, the police, and those with whom we might disagree on some theological or ethical subjects, just as much as it belongs to us. We need to work together.”

John Smyth regularly beat his own son until he bled. It started when Peter John “PJ” Smyth was only seven and lasted for five years. He told Channel 4 News that his father had been a “master manipulator.” He was a “grand narcissist, barbaric, even monstrous, and my father.” After reading the Makin Report, PJ Smyth concluded that the Church of England needed to make “rapid and radical changes in terms of response to abuse.”

Lambeth Palace issued a statement saying that Welby will officially relinquish his position on Epiphany January 6, and is not due to take part in Advent and Christmas services at Canterbury Cathedral. At Epiphany, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official functions will be delegated to the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop of the Church of England and the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide. The process of choosing Justin Welby’s successor is likely to take at least six months.

Several other issues remain: arranging for the compensation of victims; determining whether other church officials should also be held accountable for the coverup; and ensuring that current safe church practices are good enough.

Update: A former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev. Paul Butler, is among the clergy who have been asked to “step back” from ministry while safeguarding reviews prompted by the Makin review are conducted. Other senior church leaders, who are still in office, are accused by Makin of being aware of allegations against John Smyth before 2017. Bishop of Lincoln Stephen Conway, who was Bishop of Ely in 2013, is under considerable pressure to resign. So are Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of South Africa; Martin Seeley, Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich; and the Rev Dr Jo Bailey Wells, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion. TAP

Main sources: Doug LeBlanc at The Living Church; the BBC; and The Church Times.

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Predatory violence covered up

Key dates in the John Smyth scandal

• 1970s and 1980s: John Smyth physically abused boys at Christian camps in the UK and Africa

• 1982: An investigation by the Iwerne Trust, which ran the UK camps, uncovers claims of abuse – but does not report it to police until more than 30 years later

• 1984: Smyth moves to Zimbabwe for 17 years

• 2001: Smyth moves to South Africa for 17 years

• 2013: Church of England knew “at the highest level” about the allegations, says Makin report

• 2013: Police were notified – Justin Welby now says he “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”

• 2016: The Iwerne Trust’s report was made public

• 2017: Channel 4 News investigation highlights the findings

• 2018: Smyth dies in Cape Town, never having faced justice

• 2019: Independent report commissioned, led by Keith Makin, to look into Church’s handling of the Smyth case

• 7 November 2024: Makin report published – Justin Welby says he won’t resign

• 11 November 2024: An online petition calling for Welby’s resignation receives nearly 9,000 digital signatures

• 12 November 2024: Justin Welby resigns

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