Victims of abuser John Smyth and fellow bishops expressed frustration at the tone of Archbishop Justin Welby’s occasionally jovial farewell speech, delivered during a debate on homelessness in the House of Lords on December 5. The archbishop said on social media that he “would like to apologize wholeheartedly for the hurt” caused by his remarks.
In his first public appearance since announcing his resignation nearly a month ago, Welby said that he pitied his “poor diary secretary” who had to cancel so many engagements already planned for next year. Noting that “heads had to roll” in response to the Church of England’s safeguarding problems, he compared himself to a predecessor, whose head rolled down Tower Hill after being struck off during the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.
“There comes a time if you are technically leading a particular institution or area of responsibility where the shame of what has gone wrong, whether one is personally responsible or not, must require a head to roll,” he said. “And there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough.”
He said he hoped to avoid the fate of Simon of Sudbury, who was seized by a mob while celebrating a Mass and decapitated by sword blows. “[They] then played football with it at the Tower of London. I don’t know who won. It certainly wasn’t Simon of Sudbury,” Welby quipped.
He emphasized that safeguarding measures in the Church of England are “a completely different picture from the past,” but continued,
“When I look back at the last 50 or 60 years, not only through the eyes of the Makin report — however one takes one’s view of personal responsibility — it is clear that I had to stand down and it is for that reason that I do so.”
Mark Stibbe, who was abused by John Smyth as a teenager and led public calls for his resignation, told The Times he was “dismayed” by Welby’s remarks, and wondered if the archbishop was “now questioning his personal responsibility.”
“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,” he said.
Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley of Newcastle, the only fellow bishop who publicly pushed for Welby’s resignation in early November, said she was “deeply disturbed by the language of ‘a head had to roll.’”
“It was, in my view unwise to say at the very least. 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.”
Lambeth Palace issued a personal statement from the archbishop on December 6. In it, he said:
“I would like to apologise wholeheartedly for the hurt that my speech has caused.
“I understand that my words — the things that I said, and those I omitted to say — have caused further distress for those who were traumatized, and continue to be harmed, by John Smyth’s heinous abuse, and by the far-reaching effects of other perpetrators of abuse.
“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.
“It remains the case that I take both personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period after 2013, and the harm that this has caused survivors.
“I continue to feel a profound sense of shame at the Church of England’s historic safeguarding failures.”
