Resignations alone won’t fix the Church of England

Will there be more resignations following the departure of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury? The Church is, as on everything else, split on the issue, with some bishops saying that there needs to be wider accountability, and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell saying that no more resignations are necessary. Given part of the criticism of the Makin report that triggered Welby’s departure was that he did not ensure that others performed their responsibilities around trying to stop Smyth, it would be odd for there not to be some wider ramifications. 

The report repeatedly refers to Church officers knowing of the abuse that Smyth was still perpetrating, but not reporting it to the police. It also criticises the overall response to the victims, saying it was not ‘trauma-informed’, which means they were often re-traumatised in the process of disclosing what had happened to them and trying to seek justice. It names the then Bishop of Ely Stephen Conway as someone who did take initial action in writing to church leaders in South Africa but did not follow up on what he felt was a brief response which suggested little action would be taken.