The former Archbishop of Canterbury admits his failure in the management of an abuse case

The exarzobispo of Canterbury, Justin Welby, acknowledged that he “was wrong” in the valuation of the accusations against the Anglican lawyer John Smyth, who died in 2018 at 75 without ever having been prosecuted.

In his first public interview since he resigned from the position in November 2024, Welby said that the file on Smyth, against whom he weighs complaints of at least 130 young people between the 1970s and 2010, first in the United Kingdom and then in Africa, according to the Makin report published on November 7 and that forced the resignation shortly after Welby.

“I didn’t realize how serious it was,” he said in an interview with the BBC published this Sunday.

“I left, as I said at the time, for a sense of personal responsibility for the deficiencies committed during my mandate: my own deficiencies and failure for a long period,” he explained.

The Makin file was in charge in 2019 by the Anglican Church of England itself and uncovered a cover -up campaign by the Anglican institution. In fact, he revealed that Anglican leaders since 1982 the pedophile behavior of Smyth, who is described in the report as “probably the most prolific series abuser linked to the Church of England.” However, despite suspicions, they chose to maintain the matter secret. Smyth continued with impunity by committing abuse after the 90s in Zimbabue and South Africa.

“I think they didn’t pressed enough as they would have done a few years later. I had heard about Smyth’s offenses in August 2013. I had been in the post for 11 weeks,” Welby explained.

The unveiled abuses occurred in the context of summer camps that he organized for the evangelical association The Titus Trust. The exarzobispo of Canterbury was voluntary in these camps in the late 1970s. In this sense, the Makin report considers “unlikely” that I had no knowledge of the suspicions that weighed on this Anglican lawyer at that time.

Negligent management in 2013

But, above all, he points to his negligent management in 2013. That year, Welby was officially informed of complaints against Smyth. The Makin report concludes that Welby “could and should” have denounced the facts to the police. This inaction allowed Smyth, who died in 2018, escape from justice. The case did not come to public light until 2017, after an investigation by Channel 4 revealed the abuses committed against children.

“I am very sorry and I feel a deep sense of personal failure, both by the victims of Smyth who were not attended sufficiently after 2017, when we met the scope of the matter, as for my own personal failures,” he said in the interview.

“I should have said: are we absolutely sure that there is no one more involved?”

In another part of the interview, Welby said he felt surpassed by the amount of fascicles with complaints of abuses that since 2013 began to reach their office when there were no offices dedicated to the protection of minors in labor environments.

“It was overwhelming, we tried to establish priorities, but I think it was easier to be defensive,” Welby said after assuming he had “wrong.” And he added: “As Archbishop, there can be no excuses.”

“Every day new cases arrived at my table that had not been properly treated in the past,” he said in the interview with the BBC broadcast this Sunday.

“A few weeks were absolutely overwhelming. Now, this is not an excuse. It is a cause. It is not an excuse,” he also added in this regard.

He affirmed, on the other hand, that the norms of the time “said that the cases investigated them the diocese where they were denounced” and that at that time “the police said that it did not interfere.”

“A few years later, he would have pressed more,” he explained.

In any case, he pointed out that the policies and measures for the protection of linked minors and adults have changed radically. “For current cases, we have something like 60 people in Church Housein Westminster, who work in training, equipment and research. And most importantly, the first line: each parish has a parish protection officer, ”he explained.

During the interview, he also considered that there are sometimes a certain “precipitation” when judging the chiefs of ecclesiastical institutions when they are involved in the whirlwind of the sexual scandals.

“There is a lack of forgiveness, we do not treat our leaders as human beings,” he lamented, stating that “we hope they are perfect.”

There are no perfect leaders

“If you want perfect leaders, they won’t have leaders,” he criticized.

In February of this year, the team in charge of the protection and safeguard policy within the Anglican Church published the names of ten other members of the clergy against which they were going to try to initiate disciplinary procedures in relation to the Smyth case.

Among them is George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1991 and 2002, who, according to this group of experts, was aware of John Smyth’s actions since he had received a copy of a report in this regard. Carey, 89, resigned from the priesthood in December 2024, after the publication of another investigation that accused him of not having transmitted to the police the accusations of sexual assault against a bishop when he himself was head of the institution.

However, other thirty members of the Anglican Church, involved in some way in the case, may not be subject to these disciplinary measures, since the evidence is insufficient, according to this team.