Church of England leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was due to leave his post Monday, two months after resigning over his handling of a sexual abuse scandal. File photo by Rodrigo Sura/EPA-EFE
Church of England leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was due to leave his post Monday, two months after resigning over his handling of a sexual abuse scandal.
The 69-year-old former oil executive leaves London’s Lambeth Palace at midnight Monday after keeping a low profile since taking “personal and institutional responsibility” in the wake of a damning report into the church’s cover-up of the serial abuse of young boys at the hands of deceased Christian camp organizer John Smyth in the 1970s and 1980s. Advertisement
The report found Smyth, who died in 2018, might have faced justice while he was alive had Welby called in the police when victims came forward after he took over as archbishop from Rowan Willams in 2013.
Welby has been seen little since he announced he would quit Nov. 12 after more than three decades in the priesthood, 12 of them as head of the church, and did not give the Christmas Day sermon he normally delivers from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. Advertisement
In December, he was forced to apologize after being roundly criticized for his farewell speech in the House of Lords in which he appeared to make light of the church’s handling of historic safeguarding failures under his watch.
Welby will officially hand his ceremonial bishop’s crozier along with his role leading the world’s estimated 85 million Anglicans to his number two, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, pending the appointment of a permanent successor.
Cottrell is facing his own problems with calls from fellow clergy and further afield for him to quit the church over allegations in a BBC investigation that in his previous role as Bishop of Chelmsford, he did nothing for more than a decade about one of his priests who had a record of abuse allegations involving girls.
David Tudor was banned from being alone with children and from all schools in the county, had served a five-year suspension for abuse and paid off a woman who alleged he sexually abused her as a child.
Tudor was only finally barred for life by a Bishops Disciplinary Tribunal in October, 37 years after the first allegations about his behavior began to emerge.
Cottrell has pushed back strongly and refused to resign, insisting he did everything he could, suspending Tudor at the first legal opportunity in 2019 when a new victim came forward. Advertisement
He said there were no employment law grounds to take action and that he worked closely with the diocese’s professional safeguarding team after being appointed Bishop of Chelmsford to ensure the risk posed by Tudor was “managed” until the fresh complaint was made.
The Church of England also pointed out that safeguarding decisions and guidance by the House of Bishops, to which all appointments are now subject, was being further strengthened to implement a clear process around safe recruitment and risk, even in cases where authorities declined to prosecute, to ensure the Church was “a safe place for all.”
The Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt. Rev. Helen-Ann Hartley, said last month that Cottrell’s position was no longer tenable because he had done too little, too late.
“How can you have the moral and ethical authority to lead an institution with that? One archbishop has resigned over a safeguarding failure, and now the remaining archbishop has a very serious matter that calls into question his ability to lead on the urgent change that is required,” she said.
