Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said his resignation last 12 months was the proper decision, despite it being “one in all the loneliest moments I’ve ever had”.
Welby resigned after the publication of the Makin report into abuse conducted by John Smyth at Christian camps in England and South Africa. The report said that Welby had not done enough when he became aware of the allegations.
Speaking on the Cambridge Union, Welby responded to allegations within the report which concluded that had Welby or the Church reported Smyth to the police sooner, he might need been delivered to justice.
Welby claimed that Makin’s report was inaccurate in places and insisted that he had only heard allegations of Smyths abuse in 2013, with fuller details only becoming known to him in 2017. Smyth died in 2018.
Welby said, based on Church Times, “Makin is unsuitable … Not deliberately, but he didn’t see a little bit of evidence that subsequently got here out after his report and after my resignation. … The little bit of evidence is emails from Lambeth to Ely, and from Ely, letters to South Africa where Smyth was living, and letters to the police wherein the reporting was fully given to the police and the police asked the Church to not perform its own investigations because it could interfere with theirs.”
Welby, who said he himself had been abused, indicated that he wished to respect the pain and feelings of victims of abuse.
“I’m going to be very careful since it’s not likely about me. There can be people here who’ve been abused, who’re the victims of abuse, sexual abuse or physical abuse, emotional abuse. And I even have been very open that I’m one in all them. So I’m aware of what it means,” he said.
While taking issue with a number of the points raised within the Makin review, Welby said that his decision to resign was still the proper one. He conceded that he had not done the whole lot that he must have done in response to the abuse allegations and added that he felt it correct that he take responsibility for the extent of abuse present in the organisation he was heading.
Despite standing by the choice to quit, Welby described it as “one in all the loneliest moments I’ve ever had and the reverberations of that I still feel”.
Welby also reflected on his decision to criticise the previous Tory government’s Rwanda scheme for illegal migrants in 2022. He said he needed to speak out to be able to be “faithful to Christ”.
He also claimed that in Covid, the federal government pressured him and the Church of England to shut church buildings, claiming that not doing so would harm ethnic minorities and Muslims: “They said, ‘Look, for those who don’t shut the churches within the C of E, we won’t give you the option to get anyone from ethnic-minority groups and particularly Islam. They are waiting to see what you do.’”
 Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said his resignation last 12 months was the proper decision, despite it being “one in...){kind=link}