Archbishop of Canterbury faces pressure to resign over Church abuse scandal

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Archbishop of Canterbury faces pressure to resign over ******* ****** scandal

The Archbishop of Canterbury is facing mounting pressure to resign after a damning report into ****** by a prolific child abuser associated with the ******* of England.

Anglican priest Giles Fraser told the BBC the Most Rev Justin Welby had “lost the confidence of his clergy” and his position was untenable.

Three members of the *******’s parliament – the General Synod – have started a petition calling for Mr Welby to resign over his “failures” to report John Smyth QC’s “abhorrent” ****** of boys and young men at ********** summer camps.

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said Mr Welby “could and should” have reported the case to authorities when details were presented to him in 2013.

Mr Welby acknowledged he should have more rigorously followed up the details and said last week he had considered resigning, but decided to stay in his role.

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into Smyth’s case said he might have been brought to justice for decades of ****** before his ****** in 2018 had he been formally reported to authorities a decade ago.

Smyth ***** aged 75 while under investigation by Hampshire Police.

The review also noted that some ******* leaders had been made aware of the ****** in 1982.

In a statement, Mr Welby said he was “deeply sorry that this ****** happened” and “sorry that concealment by many people who were fully aware of the ****** over many years meant that John Smyth was able to ****** overseas and ***** before he ever faced justice”.

He added: “I had no idea or suspicion of this ****** before 2013.”

The petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation was created on Saturday by three of the General Synod’s almost 500 members, and is open to anyone to sign online. By Monday morning it had gathered over 1,500 signatures.

“Given his role in allowing ****** to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable,” the petition reads.

“We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the good of the *******.”

Mr Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s ******* at Kew, west London, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Welby “really [had] to go”.

Recalling his own experience of ****** at school, Mr Fraser said such an experience was “very traumatic and stays with you”.

“This happened to me when I was seven, eight – I’m 60 in a few weeks’ time,” he said.

“The idea that people continued to be abused after the ******* knew what was happening is disgraceful.”

At the weekend, the *******’s lead safeguarding bishop said she welcomed Mr Welby’s apology – and would not say whether he should resign.

“I really appreciate that the Archbishop has wholeheartedly apologised for what he could have and should have done differently in 2013,” the Rt Rev Joanne Grenfell, the Bishop of Stepney told the BBC.

“I also recognise his commitment over the change of his tenure as Archbishop to really having tried to change safeguarding.”

Mr Welby said he hoped the Makin Review would support the ongoing work of building a safer ******* here and around the world, and reiterated his “horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious ******, as reflected in his public apology”.

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