In his first public speech since announcing his resignation, the archbishop of Canterbury struck a “frivolous tone” that left childhood abuse victims “dismayed” and “disgusted.”
“Whether one is personally responsible or not,” a head had to roll, said the archbishop, Justin Welby, on Dec. 5. He added that “there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough.”
An independent report, the Makin Review, found Archbishop Justin Welby should have reported serial child abuser John Smyth to the police in 2013. But despite reports of “abhorrent” abuse, Welby failed to take sufficient action.
Christa Brown
So, yes, according to the report, Welby bore responsibility, as did other leaders in the Church of England.
Before his death in 2018, Smyth is believed to have inflicted physical, sexual and psychological abuse on more than 100 boys and young men in England, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The report described Smyth’s abuses as “prolific, brutal and horrific.”
Many of these abuses “could and should have been prevented,” said the report, but there was “a distinct lack of curiosity” shown by senior figures and “a tendency toward minimization of the matter.”
Despite the report’s damning findings, and despite Welby’s prior statement that he took “personal and institutional responsibility,” his head-had-to-roll statement was viewed by many as, yet again, side-stepping his personal responsibility and minimizing the horror.
The bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, said she was “deeply disturbed” by Welby’s language and “disappointed” to see other bishops laughing at some of Welby’s jokes. “To make light of serious matters of safeguarding failures in this way yet again treats victims and survivors of church abuse without proper respect or regard.”
Survivor Mark Stibbe, who told of being groomed and beaten by Smyth in the 1970s, said, “I object to the use of such a frivolous tone in such a serious matter — a matter that has been, and continues to be, a matter of life and death to some.”
Stibbe added that “survivors want all those responsible to stand down.”
“Survivors want all those responsible to stand down.”
This is the kind of accountability that is needed; all those responsible need to be held accountable, both perpetrators and complicit enablers. Yet this is the kind of accountability we rarely see in religious institutions confronted with abuse. Instead, again and again, the patterns of quietude and coverup prevail.
And almost always, there is the institutional drive to put it in the rear-view mirror and to move on as quickly as possible without fully reckoning.
In observing this pattern yet again, one commentator posed this question: “Why should it be up to people who have already been through the most hideous things to have to somehow find the strength to push for a huge, powerful and evidently self-interested institution to make serious changes?”
That’s a question I’ve asked myself again and again over the course of two decades of calling for abuse reforms in the Southern Baptist Convention. Why does so much of the burden fall on the survivors themselves?
Instead of genuine remorse, outreach and restitution for horrific institutional harms, there is only more burden and betrayal.
One commentator observed how, in 2014, Welby had been blogging about the importance of listening to abuse survivors and not blaming them. Yet even as in public he was talking the talk of caring about abuse, behind the scenes, he was doing nothing about Smyth and leaving more victims to be wounded. The duplicity of it is staggering— and yet so common.
Southern Baptist abuse survivors will not soon forget the betrayal of realizing that, even as he was publicly purporting to care about abuse, former SBC President Bart Barber was quietly authorizing an anti-survivor amicus brief on behalf of the whole of the SBC. The duplicity of it lives in our collective memory.
“I did not intend to overlook the experience of survivors or to make light of the situation.”
We also recall similar sorts of tone-deaf remarks by Southern Baptist leaders. Remember Barber’s joke about using “Monopoly money” to address sexual abuse reforms? And others laughed, seemingly oblivious to the impact on vulnerable people.
Maybe many of you have forgotten these things, but I guarantee you clergy sex abuse survivors remember.
In the realm of religious institutional betrayal and abuse, the patterns repeat themselves again and again. And every time, they inflict additional harm and further erode any possibility of trust.
On Friday, Welby apologized “for the hurt” caused by his speech. “I did not intend to overlook the experience of survivors or to make light of the situation — and I am very sorry for having done so,” he stated. “It remains the case that I take both personal and institutional responsibility.”
But of course, would his apology have even happened if survivors themselves had not put pressure on?
Welby is due to step down Jan. 6, 2025.
Christa Brown, a retired appellate attorney, is the author of Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse, Betrayal, and Transformation. Follow her on X @ChristaBrown777 and on Bluesky @christabrown.bsky.social.
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