Justin Welby says he 'forgives' Church abuser - as ex-Synod member tells LBC he's 'famous for bad judgement'
30 March 2025, 10:01 | Updated: 30 March 2025, 12:07
Justin Welby has said he would forgive the serial Church of England abuser whose actions led to his resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury.
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Dr Welby resigned in November after a report revealed he did not adequately follow up on reports about serial abuser John Smyth, who was heavily involved with the Church of England.
"Yes, I think if he was alive and I saw him," the former archbishop of Canterbury said when asked if he could forgive the now dead clergyman.
Mr Welby told the BBC: "But it's not, it's not me he has abused. He's abused the victims and survivors. So whether I forgive or not is to a large extent, irrelevant.
"What matters is: are the survivors - and everyone responds differently to abuse - but are the survivors sufficiently loved by the Church and cared for and are enabled, liberated to rebuild their lives?
"After that, you can start talking about forgiveness."
Asked if he wanted forgiveness from Smyth's victims, Mr Welby said: "Obviously, but it's not about me. When we talk about safeguarding, the centre of it is the victims and survivors.
"I have never, ever said to a survivor, 'you must forgive', because that is their sovereign, absolute individual choice. Everyone wants to be forgiven, but to demand forgiveness is to abuse again."
Jayne Ozanne, a former member of the Synod, said Mr Welby was "famous" for his "poor judgement" among people who worked for him.
She told LBC's Matthew Wright: "Every time he talks about this, it re-traumatises those who are still waiting for justice, who are still waiting for redress, who are still waiting for the Church to change."
He also said he failed to follow proper procedure because of the sheer scale and size of the problem.
"Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case - and yes I knew Smyth but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks," he said.
"It was overwhelming, one was trying to prioritise - but I think it's easy to sound defensive over this.
"The reality is I got it wrong. As archbishop, there are no excuses," he told the BBC.
The Makin Review last year found Smyth had subjected as many as 130 boys and young men to traumatic attacks across five decades in three different countries in the UK and Africa.
The review found Smyth might have been brought to justice had Dr Welby formally reported him to police five years before the barrister's death in 2018.
While he initially resisted calls to resign, the former archbishop said in his November statement that he must take "personal and institutional" responsibility over his handling of the abuse allegations.
Dr Welby said he was concerned there could be a "rush to judgment" about public figures faced with controversies and whether to resign.
Reverend Dr Ian Paul is 'incensed' by Justin Welby's 'typical non-apology' in the House of Lords
Welby told the House of Lords in December it was “clear” he had to resign after the damming report was made public.
In his valedictory speech to the chamber, the Archbishop said: "The reality is that 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.
"And there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough."
A senior bishop hit out at Welby after his speech, slamming his “tone” and accusing him of “making light” of the sexual abuse scandal.
Bishop of Newcastle Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, the only bishop to call publicly for Mr Welby's resignation in the days following the Makin Review's publication last month, said she was "deeply disturbed" by parts of the speech.
