It feels almost quaint, in this era where politicians openly break the law and boast about getting away with it, for a religious figure to do wrong and suffer consequences for it. Nevertheless, that’s what today’s story is about.
We know well that religion often functions as a cloak for sexual predators to abuse the vulnerable. Whether it’s the Amish, Mormons, the Southern Baptists, evangelical Christians, or, of course, the Roman Catholic church… the details always sound familiar.
There’s one predator, or a small number of them, who preys on women, children, or any other disempowered group that they believe won’t speak out or won’t be listened to. There’s a larger circle of people who know about the abuse but do nothing. Often, they take active steps to cover it up, reasoning that the harm suffered by the victims matters less than the harm to the church’s reputation of godliness if the news got out. This emboldens the predator to keep assaulting people for years or decades, until the accumulated weight of their evil becomes too great to ignore. When the predator is finally exposed, the scandal is much bigger and more damaging than it would otherwise have been if the church had just done the right thing from the start.
Today’s story fits that pattern in all particulars. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ceremonial head of the Church of England, is resigning, after proof emerged that he knew about a prolific child abuser and did nothing:
An independent investigation last week released its long-awaited report into the late John Smyth, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused more than 100 boys and young men at Christian summer camps in the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades.
The 251-page report concluded that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, soon after he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Had he done so, Smyth could have been stopped sooner and many of his victims wouldn’t have been abused, the report found.
… “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said, announcing his resignation.
John Smyth, the abuser in question, was a volunteer leader at the Iwerne camps from the 1960s to the 1980s. These were Christian summer camps aimed at privileged children from private schools, with the goal of preparing them to become future leaders of the church. However, like many religious retreats, they also served as a hunting ground for predators lurking in the religious power structure.
According to an independent report commissioned by the church, Smyth abused over a hundred boys and young men. He brutally beat them with a cane for minor or invented infractions, displaying a streak of violent sexual sadism:
Smyth used a cane to punish campers for “sins” that included “pride,” making sexual remarks, masturbation or, in one case, looking at a girl too long, according to the report. The victims and Smyth were at least partly, if not fully, naked during the savage beatings.
…Eight of the victims received about 14,000 strokes of the cane and two reported 8,000 lashes over three years. Eight men said they often bled from the whippings and others reported bruising and scarring.
As is always the case, Smyth’s behavior was an open secret. Many people knew about it and covered it up to protect the church from scandal:
A secret report of the abuse was compiled by a minister in 1982 and other church officers were aware of it, but police were never contacted.
“I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public,” the now-deceased Rev. David Fletcher told people who worked on the new report.
Eventually, Smyth’s abuse became too well-known to keep hushing it up. Just like the Catholic predators who were quietly transferred to new parishes, he was encouraged – and financially assisted by church officials – to leave the UK. In 1984, he moved to Zimbabwe, where he continued to run children’s summer camps. He ultimately escaped justice, dying of natural causes in 2018.
Although Welby worked at the Iwerne camps in the 1970s, the same time that Smyth was preying on children, he claims he was unaware of it. This may or may not be true, but it’s not in dispute that he was informed about it by 2013. However, he didn’t report it to the police or take any other steps to see that it was investigated.
Finally, in 2017, the UK’s Channel 4 News blew the lid off Smyth’s past with an expose. This spurred an independent investigation, the Makin Review, which was published this month and sparked the outcry that led to Welby’s resignation.
What remains to be seen is whether this means real reform in the Church of England, or whether it’s just one leader throwing himself on his sword without making any institutional changes. If experience has taught us anything, it’s that where there’s one predator, there are almost always others. When the next one comes to light, that will be the real test. Will the church act promptly to bring an offender to justice as soon as their misdeeds are known? Or will they persist in hushing it up until an outraged third party does the right thing?
