Welby has bowed to the inevitable at last

More than 12,000 members signed a petition drafted by members of the General Synod calling for the Archbishop’s resignation

There have been some grisly ends down the centuries for holders of the great ecclesiastical office of Archbishop of Canterbury, not least for Thomas a Becket, Thomas Cranmer and William Laud. Until the 20th century, most occupants died in harness before it became usual to retire, as is now required by the age of 70.
But Justin Welby is the first to be forced out for non-ecumenical reasons since the Norman Conquest. It is an ignominious departure for a cleric whose arrival at Lambeth Palace in 2013 was greeted with some relief after the rarefied tenure of Rowan Williams.
A former oil company executive from the evangelical wing of the Church, Welby was seen as just the sort of managerial figure needed to steer it away from the rocks of controversy in a rapidly secularising world, whether it be dealing with gay marriage or female bishops.
But even as he took up the post, the very subject that would prove to be his undoing raised its very ugly head – child abuse in the Church. In the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal every institution was obliged to avoid the mistakes made by the BBC. But when the Archbishop was told about the brutish activities of John Smyth, a barrister who ran Christian camps and abused scores of children, he failed the test.
An independent report into the way the Church handled the case was published last week and made difficult reading for the Archbishop, so much so, indeed, that he considered resigning then. It would have been better had he done so rather than wait until a head of steam gathered within the Church to remove him.
At least one bishop had demanded he go and he had few supporters among the clergy who never forgave him for shutting their churches during the Covid pandemic then disappearing on a “spiritual” sabbatical before it was over.
Ordinary clergy who fear being hauled over the coals for “safeguarding” failures are angry to see the head of the Church failing to practise what he preached. The double standards were evident and so was the loss of the Archbishop’s moral authority. More than 12,000 members signed a petition drafted by members of the General Synod calling for his resignation.
One cleric said he could not think of an Archbishop who had caused such damage to the Church since the Reformation. That is a damning epitaph.