Former Archbishop of Canterbury Admits Failure in Decades-Long Church Abuse Crisis
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Personal SubStack
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/29
The Former Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged in a BBC interview the failure to adequately manage the Church of England’s sexual abuse crisis. He considers te scale of the problem “absolutely overwhelming.” Welby resigned in November of 2024.
The resignation followed an independent review criticizing insufficiency of responsiveness of allegations John Smyth. Smyth, a British church volunteer and lawyer, was accused of abusing more than 100 young men and boys over the course of 40+ years.
There was awareness of the abuse by Smyth since 2013. Welby was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. No known appropriate actions were taken between 2013 and November, 2024 to suffice as dealing with this case. Averaging 2-3 cases per year, Smyth likely abused another 22-33 boys and young men in that period of inaction under the knowledgeable leadership of Welby.
Welby said, “The reality is I got it wrong. As Archbishop, there are no excuses”–indeed. Freethought communities use this as an excuse at times to broad brush the churches; laity and denialist clergy claim one cannot blame the Church on this: They’re both wrong. A minority of clergy are at fault.
We should support survivors, embolden clergy to institute reforms, and re-orient secular critique to the clergy who are at fault and work with those want reform while having their freedom of religious belief and practice. This is only hard insofar as we conceive of it as hard.
Independent review showed Smyth continued to abuse in Africa, until his death in 2018. Conservative Christian theology is right here: Evil rarely, if ever, stops itself.
With files from The Times, Reuters, and AP News.
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