Britain: His resignation was announced by the Archbishop of Canterbury

His intention to resign announced by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Wellby, who is the head of the Anglican Church with 85 million believers worldwide. With His Majesty’s permission I decided to resign,” he said, after pressure from him to cover up an abuse scandal. Wellby was in a particularly difficult position after the publication of a sentencing report covering up incidents of abuse by John Schmidt in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is estimated that about 130 boys fell victim to him. The report concluded that John Schmidt could have been brought to justice if the archbishop had officially reported it to the police a decade ago. Wellby had said last week that he had considered stepping down for his “speakful” decision not to act to deal with 2013, when he was informed about the reports of abuse by Smyth, a powerful and charismatic lawyer who died in 2018.

Smyth abused private school students attending evangelical Christian holiday camps in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Within five decades, he is said to have undergone traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks of 130 boys and young men in the United Kingdom and Africa. When abuse was revealed, Schmidt was able to move abroad knowingly of church officials, where he continued to act impunity. He died in 2018 in Cape Town, at the age of 75, while an investigation was conducted by Hampshire police. The report states that “it was never attributed to justice for abuse”. Welby was a volunteer at camp in the 1970s, but denied knowing the concerns about Schmidt. However, the report said that this was “impossible”. The authors of the report say that Wellby may not have known about the extreme serious nature of abuse, but it is very likely that he would have at least a level of knowledge that Schmidt was causing concern.

” It cannot be established whether Wellby was aware of the severity of the abuses in the United Kingdom before 2013’, however, is reported.