Fall of UK Archbishop over SA-based paedophile cleric shows apologizing not enough

18 Nov 2024, 11:54 by Editor BizNews · BizNews

Archbishop Justin Welby’s resignation marks a historic and controversial moment for the Church of England. Under pressure from peers, the press, and the prime minister, he stepped down amidst fallout from the John Smyth abuse scandal, where decades of crimes in England, Zimbabwe and then South Africa were concealed. Critics cite Welby’s managerial failures, despite his modern leadership background. This crisis underscores broader issues of institutional negligence, raising questions about the Church’s future and its role in British society.

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By Martin Ivens

Archbishops of Canterbury are more likely to be executed by the state — the fate of Thomas Cranmer and William Laud in the Reformation era — than to resign over a scandal. Justin Welby is the first senior primate of the Church of England (CofE) — the ceremonial head of 85 million Anglicans worldwide — to quit under pressure from his peers, the press and the prime minister. He may not be the last.

Like many big business CEOs, Welby was judged and found wanting for his ability to manage a crisis, not for his results (although the precipitous decline in Sunday attendance on his watch suggests he was failing). Today, PR and political skills are indispensable to leaders of public institutions, spiritual leaders too.

Welby’s downfall arises from one of the worst scandals to hit the CofE in recent years. According to the independent Makin report published earlier this month, John Smyth, a barrister licensed to preach by the Church, savagely beat and sexually abused more than a hundred teenage boys and young men over a period of decades. A cover-up by clerical authorities in the 1980s let Smyth get away scot-free. In later years through “inaction of clergy within the Church of England,” Smyth continued his crimes abroad in Zimbabwe and South Africa until his death in 2018. Several of his victims attempted suicide; another died in suspicious circumstances.

Welby personally knew John Smyth in the 1980s when he attended one of his religious summer camps attended by boys from elite private schools but, by his account, only became aware of the abuse in 2013 soon after his translation to the see of Canterbury. The archbishop understood that Smyth’s crimes had been reported to the police, but failed to inquire more deeply. In fact, there was no criminal investigation into Smyth until 2017 and no attempt was made to alert the South African authorities. The Makin Review found that Welby had shown“ a distinct lack of curiosity – and a tendency to minimization of the matter”.

Welby apologized but refused to resign. Smyth’s victims erupted in fury, the Bishop of Newcastle urged Welby to quit and 14,000 Anglicans signed a petition calling on him to go. When Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that the victims had been “failed very, very badly,” Welby bowed to the inevitable and resigned, saying he was taking “personal and institutional responsibility.”

A pattern of abuse, cover-up, negligence and a failure to make prompt amends often lies at the heart of corporate scandals. By unhappy coincidence the inquiry into the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history also concluded last week. More than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted of theft and fraud after the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system made it appear as though money was missing from their branches. When the error was discovered, there was a cover-up. The inquiry’s final report is expected to deliver similar conclusions to the Makin Review — bureaucratic loyalty had trumped ethical behavior.

The CofE is by no means the worst ecclesiastical offender. The Roman Catholic hierarchy has been guilty of covering up horrific crimes committed by its clergy against children and unmarried mothers, notably in Ireland, Poland, Australia, the US and Britain. Arguably, Pope John Paul II, in other respects a world historical figure, and Pope Benedict XVI, a distinguished theologian, were culpably negligent. During the latter’s tenure, I oversaw an investigation at the Sunday Times newspaper into the misdeeds of the Irish Christian Brothers order. At my Roman Catholic school in London, I had witnessed first hand one of the Brothers’ brutality. But then tolerance for the corporal punishment of schoolchildren was a national disgrace.

Welby was supposed to be different; a modern, more worldly and wise shepherd of his flock. As a former executive with Elf Aquitaine and Enterprise Oil, the archbishop brought rare managerial experience to his clerical role. Even his dissertation at theological college was on the money — it was entitled “Can companies sin?”

He’d also shown personal courage, having overcome clinical depression and the loss of his eldest baby daughter in a car crash. Welby seemed to take in his stride the bizarre newspaper revelation, late in life, that his real biological father wasn’t the parent who raised him, but Winston Churchill’s aide Anthony Montague Browne. On Wednesday night, I and members of London’s great and good were startled by Welby’s attendance at the British Museum’s Trustees’ annual dinner within 24 hours of his resignation. At the welcoming party he chatted amiably with the editor of a satirical magazine that had been looking into the Smyth affair. That takes chutzpah.

Welby argues that he took allegations of abuse within the church seriously — he appointed 55 child safeguarding officers in dioceses across the country — but he seems to have failed on his own account. To be charitable, perhaps being new to the job in 2013 he was distracted by an overflowing in-tray. As other CEOs have found to their cost, that excuse doesn’t fly any more.

Reforming a corporate culture from within also takes rare determination. The Church Times, the Anglican house journal, editorialized that Makin’s 27 recommendations “reflect similar recommendations in dozens of previous safeguarding reports over 40-plus years that the CofE has previously chosen to ignore or disregard.” The CofE’s Independent Safeguarding Board was closed in 2023 after infighting among its members.

Will there be a wider reckoning? Welby couldn’t heal the divisions between conservatives and liberals in his church, and the worldwide Anglican Communion may break up. Some politicians are calling for the church’s bishops to lose their place in a reformed House of Lords. Others predict the disestablishment of the national church. The CofE’s next CEO will need rare skills to rescue a failing brand.

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