Archbishop of Canterbury Forced to Resign Over Sadistic Abuse Scandal
253-page report names and shames spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide
Days after he stubbornly declared that he would not quit as the head of the world’s third largest Christian communion, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to resign over a horrific abuse scandal.
Welby, a close friend and ecumenical partner of Pope Francis, announced his resignation Tuesday morning following a tidal wave of outrage led by senior Anglican clergy, parliamentarians, leading public figures, and Christians of all denominations.
Welby was named and shamed in a devastating independent review of John Smyth, an attorney who physically abused more than 130 boys between the ages of 13 and 17, while leading the Iwerne summer camps for evangelical youth over four decades.
The Makin Report accused Welby of displaying a “distinct lack of curiosity” and a “tendency towards minimisation of the matter, demonstrated by the absence of any further questioning and follow up, particularly regarding the Church reassuring itself that a known abuser was not still actively abusing.”
Described as “the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England,” Smyth whipped eight of the boys with a total of 14,000 lashes, while two more received 8,000 strokes between them over three years, according to a confidential report compiled by Rev. Mark Ruston and Rev. David Fletcher in 1982.
Horrific Details
Eight victims spoke of bleeding on most occasions (“I could feel the blood splattering on my legs,” “I was bleeding for 3½ weeks,” “I fainted sometime after a severe beating”). Some of the victims had to wear adult nappies because the bleeding would not stop.
According to the independent reviewer, “I have seen bruised and scored buttocks, some two-and-a-half months after the beating. Beatings of 100 strokes for masturbation, 400 for pride, and one of 800 strokes for some undisclosed ‘fall’ are recorded.”
In December 1992, Guide Nyachuru, a 16-year-old boy, died at one of Symth’s camps in Zimbabwe, where the barrister had relocated in July 1984. Smyth was charged with manslaughter but was not convicted.
“Whilst in Zimbabwe, he continued to abuse boys and young men, and there is evidence that abusive practices continued in South Africa until his death in August 2018,” the author wrote.
The Makin report details the “physical violence, sexual abuse, coercive control, psychological abuse and emotional neglect (of his own children)” perpetrated by Smyth, as well as his use of the Bible to justify it.
It notes that Smyth, who displayed a “narcissistic personality disorder of a grandiose type,” as well as “exhibitionist and voyeuristic tendencies” and “a sexual interest in boys and young men, not incompatible with a sexual interest in his wife,” derived sexual gratification and sadistic pleasure from abusing his upper-class victims who went to elite private schools, a fact Smyth bitterly resented.
Savage Abuse
The victims were savagely beaten with a cane while wholly or partially unclothed in a specially furnished garden shed, with Smyth either partially or fully naked, as well. Smyth told the victims that these beatings were an appropriate step in their Christian growth.
Anne Smyth, John’s wife, knew of the abuses and helped dealing with the physical consequences of them, giving the victims bandages and ointment, as well as adult-sized nappies, to help stem the bleeding.
“I knew that admitting to masturbation or having sexual thoughts would result in a beating but also pride,” one victim said. “It was a catch-22 situation that if I did not admit to these thoughts I would be beaten for pride.”
Smyth and his wife were excommunicated by his local church in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2017. Smyth died a year later.
Longtime Acquaintances
Welby, who himself volunteered at the summer camps, was overheard having a “grave” conversation about Smyth with the Rev. Mark Ruston in 1978, according to the report. The archbishop claimed he could not recall the conversation.
The report also states that the archbishop was told to beware of Smyth in 1981, while Welby was working as an oil executive in Paris and Smyth had taken a group of four victims on a skiing trip to France. Welby later insisted that the warning was vague and no detail was given.
The archbishop admitted knowing Smyth from the camps; he also lodged in Smyth’s dormitory for two camps in 1990 while serving as a camp leader. Welby also acknowledged exchanging Christmas cards with Smyth for several years and donating to Smyth’s ministry in Zimbabwe.
In 2013, the top brass of the Church of England, including Welby, were made aware of Smyth’s abuse. The archbishop, however, failed to report the matter to the police.
Entrenched
Victims said the Church never proactively reached out to them after Channel 4 exposed the scandal in 2017, and that Welby failed to honor his promises to meet with the victims until 2021 — four years after the program aired.
Welby, who presided over the coronation of King Charles in September 2022, continued to insist until the very end that he was unaware of Smyth’s savagery until 2013, but confessed that he “personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated.”
On November 7, Welby told Channel 4 in an exclusive interview that he had considered resigning as recently as that morning, explaining: “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ve taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues. And no, I’m not going to resign for this.
“If I’d known before 2013 or had grounds for suspicion, that would be a resigning matter then and now. But I didn’t.”
The archbishop’s emphatic refusal to resign triggered an avalanche of anger and a tsunami of media reports calling for Welby to quit his position.
Loud Cries of Outrage
On Monday, Newcastle Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley said Welby’s position was untenable and that a line needed to be drawn.
Writing on X, Anglican minister Matthew Firth noted that “Welby was warned about his good friend John Smyth’s behaviour in 1978 and 1981. When he was told about the full extent of the horrific abuse in 2013, he didn’t report it to the police. Coverup. His position is completely untenable. He must resign. Today.”
“Resign? He should be locked up,” tweeted Lee Anderson, a member of parliament for Ashfield.
High-profile Anglican priest and media broadcaster Giles Fraser noted that this was not Welby’s only failure to report abuse. “He was guilty of another serious failing whilst Dean of Liverpool,” Fraser remarked.
On Saturday, three senior Anglican clerics issued an online petition calling for Welby’s resignation. The petition gathered more than 14,000 signatures.
In his resignation letter, Welby admitted: “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
Richard Scorer, head of Abuse Law at the Slater & Gordon law firm, told The Stream, “Justin Welby is right to resign – given his track record he couldn’t credibly lead the Church of England. But it is important to remember that the Church’s failures to protect children are systemic and not limited to one individual.
“They will not be solved simply by Welby’s resignation,” added Scorer, who is Britain’s best-known lawyer for defending victims of clerical sex abuse. “We need mandatory reporting and independent oversight, and these cannot come soon enough.”
Conservatives in the Anglican Communion who had repeatedly challenged Welby over his “woke” Christianity celebrated the archbishop’s resignation on social media.
British Catholic journalist Damian Thompson compared Welby’s record with Pope Francis’s over their failure to act against sex abusers, noting that if “Welby is forced to resign because he failed to act against the abuser John Smyth, then the media must finally address even more grave accusations that Pope Francis has personally protected a string of vile criminals.
“They include Francis’ friend [Father Marko Ivan] Rupnik, still a priest despite multiple credible accounts that he raped nuns,” Thompson, associate editor of The Spectator, posted on X.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.