More senior clergy may have to follow Welby in resigning, says bishop

More senior clergy within the Church of England may have to resign following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to step down over personal failings in how a long time of “abhorrent” child abuse by the late John Smyth was responded to. 

Julie Conalty, the Bishop of Birkenhead and deputy lead bishop for safeguarding within the Church of England, said that Archbishop Justin Welby had “done the best thing” by resigning but that his departure alone will not be enough as far-reaching change inside the Church of England is required.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme, Conalty said: “Just the Archbishop of Canterbury resigning is just not going to unravel the issue. This is about institutional changes, our culture and a systemic failure, so there should be more that we’d like to do. Very possibly among the people should go.”

She declined to call who else she thought should resign. 

The second most senior figure within the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has said he doesn’t think more bishops have to step down. 

He told the “Today” programme: “Those who actively covered this up [should resign], which was not bishops.

“When people speak in regards to the Church of England, we’d like to recollect we’re speaking about literally 1000’s of branches, parishes, chaplaincies.”

Asked whether more bishops should resign, Archbishop Cottrell replied: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned.”

Pressed on whether he thought this was enough, he said: “Yes, because he has resigned for the institutional failings.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting weighed in, saying that while it was “absolutely the best decision” for Welby to step down, the Church of England mustn’t think “one head rolling solves the issue”. 

Saying that he was speaking “as an Anglican, not as a government minister”, he told the “Today” programme that there are “deep and fundamental problems with not only practice, but culture on safeguarding that should be taken seriously”.

Welby resigned on Tuesday after coming under intense pressure in the times following the publication of the Makin Review’s final report into how the Church of England handled abuse by the late QC and Christian camp organiser, John Smyth. 

The damning report said that Smyth had committed “abhorrent” abuse of over 100 children and young men over a period of a long time. Despite knowing in regards to the abuse from the 80s, referrals to police weren’t made until a long time later by which era Smyth had moved to Africa where the abuse continued. 

The report concluded that “despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the eye of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up”.

The report also pointed the finger at Welby for failing to report the abuse to the authorities after becoming aware of it in 2013. 

It said, “From July 2013 the Church of England knew, at the best level, in regards to the abuse that took place within the late Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties. John Smyth must have been properly and effectively reported to the police within the UK and to relevant authorities in South Africa. This represented an additional missed opportunity to bring him to justice.”

There have been calls from survivors for more resignations, with Smyth survivor telling Channel 4 News: “What I believe the survivor group would really like is more resignations because meaning more accountability.”

The Bishop of Lincoln, Stephen Conway, has resisted calls to resign over his response to a disclosure about Smyth’s abuse while Bishop of Ely. 

In an announcement, he said he had “made an in depth disclosure to Lambeth Palace and contacted the relevant diocese in South Africa to alert them to the difficulty”, and that he “did all inside my authority as a bishop of the Church of England”. He also said it was his understanding that the matter had been reported to UK police. 

He said: “I acknowledge fully that my fault was in not rigorously pursuing Lambeth about that province-to-province communication, and for this I’m deeply sorry.”