Calls proceed for Welby to step down over John Smyth scandal

Pressure stays on the Archbishop of Canterbury to step down over personal failings in how he handled knowledge of horrific abuse perpetrated by the late QC John Smyth. 

Accusing the Church of England of a “cover-up”, the Makin Review published last week also pointed the finger at Archbishop Justin Welby over his failure to report Smyth’s abuse to the police after he became aware of it in 2013. 

Welby has apologised for his response and for failing to satisfy victims soon enough, but has resisted calls to resign. 

The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, is probably the most high profile figure within the Church of England to call for his resignation, telling the BBC that his position has develop into “untenable”. 

“I feel that it’s extremely hard for the church, because the national, established church, to proceed to have an ethical voice in any way, shape or form in our nation, after we cannot get our own house so as with regard to something as critically essential [as abuse],” she told the BBC.

Smyth victim Andrew Morse told the Guardian that Welby’s resignation “could be a positive step in a really bleak situation that has existed ever since Smyth began beating me and my friends greater than 40 years ago”. 

Over 11,000 people have signed a petition launched by members of the Church of England General Synod demanding Welby’s resignation.

“Alongside other concerns, the report highlights the actual responsibility of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for these failures. He ‘held a private and moral responsibility to pursue this further, regardless of the policies at play on the time required’ which he did not fulfil,” the petition reads. 

“Given his role in allowing abuse to proceed, we imagine that his continuing because the Archbishop of Canterbury is not any longer tenable.

“We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the nice of the Church—and we share this determination across our traditions.

“With sadness we don’t think there’s any alternative to his immediate resignation if the strategy of change and healing is to begin now.”

The petition is co-sponsored by theologian and Archbishops’ Council member, Dr Ian Paul, Save the Parish founder Rev Marcus Walker, and London vicar Rev Robert Thompson. 

The Dean of Chapel at King’s College Cambridge and former canon of Durham Cathedral, Dr Stephen Cherry, has added his voice to calls for Welby’s resignation, saying the Archbishop had lost the “trust and confidence” of the Church of England. 

“I feel he really must now tender his resignation and permit there to be significant change,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. 

“There are circumstances wherein something happens whereby an individual able of outstanding leadership essentially loses the trust and the boldness and the capability to do that basically wonderful thing that somebody like an Archbishop does, which is represent everyone at a certain moment, publicly.

“And the pain within the victim community and the pain of not listening to people and never responding to people who find themselves profoundly hurt by those in positions of power signifies that this is not any longer a one that can carry the representative role of that office.

“That’s my strongest thought today.”