Archbishop of Canterbury faces calls to resign amid Church abuse scandal

Some members of the General Synod, the Church of England's national assembly, have started a petition calling on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to step down.

The head of the Church of England, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, is under pressure to resign after an investigation found that he failed to inform police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.

Some members of the General Synod, the church’s national assembly, have started a petition calling on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to step down, saying he had “lost the confidence of his clergy.” The petition had garnered more than 1,800 signatures on Change.org by late morning London time on Monday.

Compounding the pressure, a senior cleric added her voice to those who believe he should resign. Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, told the BBC that Welby’s position is “untenable.”

Calls for Welby’s resignation have grown since Thursday, when the church released the results of an independent review into John Smyth, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused about 30 boys and young men in the United Kingdom and 85 in Africa over five decades.

The 251-page report concluded that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, soon after he became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Welby last week took responsibility for not ensuring that the allegations were pursued as “energetically” as they should have been after he learned of the abuse, but said he had decided not to resign.

On Monday, his office issued a statement reiterating Welby’s “horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse.”

“As he has said, he had no awareness or suspicion of the allegations before he was told in 2013 — and therefore, having reflected, he does not intend to resign,” the statement said. “He hopes the Makin Review supports the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world.”