THE former Archbishop of Canterbury the Rt Revd Justin Welby told the Cambridge Union last month that his resignation — “one of the loneliest moments I’ve ever had” — was the right thing to do, but that there were other ways in which he could have handled the fallout from the Makin report, and that its author was wrong on some points.
Having spoken about the importance of truth during the event, a recording of which was posted online last week, he was challenged by an audience member to say when he had first known about the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, and why he had “minimised” it. The questioner quoted from the Makin report, which stated that Smyth “could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK and to authorities in South Africa”, and that, had that been done, John Smyth could have brought to justice much sooner.
In his answer, Bishop Welby maintained that he had first learned of the abuse in 2013 and of its extent only in 2017. “Makin is wrong . . . Not deliberately, but he didn’t see a bit of evidence that subsequently came out after his report and after my resignation. . . The 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 in which the reporting was fully given to the police and the police asked the Church not to carry out its own investigations because it would interfere with theirs.”
Asked earlier about his resignation, he said: “I am going to be very careful because it’s not really about me. There will be people here who have been abused, who are the victims of abuse, sexual abuse or physical abuse, emotional abuse. And I have been very open that I am one of them. So I am aware of what it means.”
There were two reasons that it had been “right to resign”, he said. One was that he had not done everything that he should have done in response to the disclosures of abuse. The other was “shame” about the extent of abuse in the Church. “The only proper thing to do was to take responsibility as the current head of that organisation.”
It had been “one of the loneliest moments I’ve ever had and the reverberations of that I still feel”, he said.
In his opening remarks, Bishop Welby reflected on the importance of standing up for the truth, recalling his decision to criticise the Government’s Rwanda scheme during his Easter sermon in 2022 (News, 22 April 2022). “I remember a feeling of knowing this was going to cause trouble, but also feeling very deeply that, if I was faithful to Christ, I would say those words. It did cause trouble and part of the result of that trouble was my resignation last year.”
Asked about the Church’s record on other issues, he was self-deprecating. He had changed his mind on the blessing of people in same-sex relationships during his time in office, he confirmed: “When they fall in love, and when they live out that love faithfully and with stability and caring for others, it is a huge blessing for them and for society; and I have seen that in so many places that, in the end, even I began to realise that I was being thick.”
He agreed that the Church of England had “lost its nerve” by closing church buildings during the pandemic, but said that “at that time, we had no idea what the virus was.” The House of Bishops had been told that the virus could “survive on a cold surface for up to 72 hours”. There had also been a call from the Government asking the Church to set an example. “They said, ‘Look, if you don’t shut the churches in the C of E, we won’t be able to get anyone from ethnic-minority groups and particularly Islam. They are waiting to see what you do.’”
Asked about reconciliation, he praised a C of E school in east London in which 164 different languages are first languages. “How do we celebrate difference but not let it get completely out of control? I know we can’t have open borders, I said this many times in the House of Lords, we haven’t got the resources. We have to think of the people who receive people as well as the people who come to be received. . .
“How do we build over the next generations a sense of what it is to be this nation in a way that we can be really proud of and rejoice in and see it as a place that is a shining light for the world?”
As for the next Archbishop of Canterbury, his prayer for the Crown Nominations Commission was that it chose someone “who symbolises in their way of being and in their manner that they care for people, whether they are important or not, and [who] isn’t keen on power”.
