His intention to resign was announced by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is also the head of the Anglican Church with 85 million believers worldwide.
“Having the permission of His Majesty the King I have decided to resign,” he said, after being pressured to cover up an abuse scandal.
Welby was in a particularly difficult position following the publication of a damning report into the church’s cover-up of abuse incidents by John Smith in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is estimated that around 130 boys fell victim to him.
The report concluded that John Schmidt could have been brought to justice if the archbishop had formally reported him to the police a decade ago.
Welby had said last week that he had considered resigning over his “disgraceful” decision not to act to face 2013 when he was made aware of the abuse reports by Smyth, a powerful and charismatic barrister who died in 2018.
Smyth abused private school students attending evangelical Christian holiday camps in the late 1970s and early 80s.
Over five decades, he is said to have subjected 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse.
“He was never brought to justice for abuse”
When the abuse was revealed, Schmidt was able to move abroad with the knowledge of church officials, where he continued to act with impunity. He died in 2018 in Cape Town, aged 75, while an investigation was carried out by Hampshire police.
The report says he was “never brought to justice for the abuse.”
Welby was a volunteer at the camps in the 1970s, but denied any knowledge of the concerns about Schmidt. However, the report said this was “unlikely”. The report’s authors say that Welby may not have been aware of the extremely serious nature of the abuse, but it is highly likely that he would have had at least some level of knowledge that Schmidt was causing concern.
“It is not possible to establish whether Welby was aware of the seriousness of the abuses in the UK prior to 2013,” it said.
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