Head of Church of England Resigns Over Alleged Failure to Deal With Prolific Abuser

LONDON—Archbishop Justin Welby, the most senior bishop in the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, resigned Tuesday under pressure over allegations that he failed to respond adequately following accusations against one of the most prolific child abusers in the church’s history.

After becoming archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, Welby was informed that John Smyth, a senior barrister, had groomed and abused over a hundred boys at Christian summer camps, and a prestigious British boarding school, in the U.K. and Africa beginning in the 1970s, according to an independent report into the episode published last week. The report concluded that Welby had a moral responsibility to pursue that information further, but didn’t do so adequately. Smyth died in 2018 at age 77.

Welby said stepping aside “was in the best interests of the Church of England,” in a statement on X . The Anglican church says it has more than 85 million members worldwide.

The report said Smyth in the 1970s and 80s targeted mostly school-age boys whom he would punish by severely caning them, sometimes in a soundproof shed in his garden. The beatings were sometimes so bad that the boys were given diapers to wear so that the blood wouldn’t stain their clothes, the survivors said.

Smyth directly physically abused 30 boys and young men in the U.K. and another 85 boys and young men when he later moved to Africa, the report said, though the total number of victims may be far higher, it added. “John Smyth is, arguably, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England,” the report concluded.

“From July 2013 the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. John Smyth should have been properly and effectively reported to the police in the U.K. and to relevant authorities in South Africa,” it added.

The abuse was brought to the attention of Welby in 2013 but Smyth wasn’t reported to the police, Makin’s report said. Welby in his resignation statement said he was told in 2013 that the police had been notified of Smyth’s abuse.

“I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow,” he wrote. “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”

In the wake of the report, several survivors publicly criticized Welby, who initially refused to resign. However, a senior bishop this week publicly called for him to step down. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer effectively made Welby’s decision untenable after he said that the victims were “very badly” let down by the church, adding that the matter was for the Church of England.

The 68-year-old Welby, who has served as archbishop since 2013, spent his 11-year tenure trying to broker compromise between conservative and liberal wings of the Anglican church over issues such as same-sex marriage. During his tenure, the Church of England was also dogged by allegations that it failed to act over historic abuse cases. In 2020, a U.K. government-backed investigation found 390 church employees, including members of the clergy, were convicted of sex abuse between the 1940s and 2018. In 2018 alone, the church received 449 reports of abuse, many of them involving child pornography.

A commission of 16 people, mostly members of the clergy, must now choose two preferred candidates to take the role of the archbishop. King Charles III will then appoint the archbishop on the advice of the British prime minister.

FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby attend the Vespers prayer service to celebrate the conversion of Saint Paul, at St Paul’s Basilica in Rome, Italy, January 25, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo

Unlike the pope, who holds ultimate authority over Catholic teaching worldwide, the archbishop of Canterbury has no formal power over the autonomous churches of the Anglican Communion. He relies on dialogue and compromise, which so far have proved inadequate to Anglicanism’s seismic rift over sexuality. Welby, an approachable former oil executive, was brought in as a pragmatic leader who would heal these divisions, but he struggled to reconcile the views of conservative churches in Africa with more liberal ones in Europe and America.

FILE PHOTO: Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby greets people during a ceremony to bless the Forest of Communion, as part of the World Environment Day in Acajutla, El Salvador June 5, 2024.REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/File Photo

Write to Max Colchester at Max.Colchester@wsj.com