Shameful tolerance of depraved offenders within the Church of England has destroyed the public’s faith in it - Andrew Vine

There is a question those at the top of the Church of England need to answer which has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with its role in national life. It is this – why for decades has the church sheltered vile sex abusers and shielded them from prosecution?

Until the church can answer this, and demonstrate conclusively that it will no longer tolerate dangerous offenders in its midst, it cannot command the confidence of the country for which it claims to speak on issues of morality.

Churchmen and women like to pronounce weightily on such matters. In the recent past, they have included the treatment of illegal migrants and reparations for Britain’s slave trade.

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In the weeks ahead, we shall certainly be hearing from them amid the debate over assisted dying.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby addresses a service. PIC: Adrian Dennis/PA WireThe Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby addresses a service. PIC: Adrian Dennis/PA Wire
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby addresses a service. PIC: Adrian Dennis/PA Wire

But why should we listen? Institutional silence and cover-ups of sex offending have undermined the credibility of the church to be taken seriously as an arbiter of right and wrong.

Where once the established church had a claim to be a voice of conscience, now it teeters on the brink of irrelevance and even public contempt because of a disturbingly familiar pattern of trying to hush up crimes against children.

The church has created the impression of being more concerned with protecting what is left of its reputation than it is in securing justice for young victims.

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Little wonder that Anglican churches are three-quarters empty every Sunday, while other Christian denominations are welcoming new worshippers.

Sorrowful apologies for past wrongs and solemn vows to pray for victims aren’t enough to wipe away the shame that criminals were effectively allowed to continue offending when they should instead have been in jail.

The resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, over the scandalous failure to stop the church’s most prolific sex abuser, John Smyth, raises difficult questions about whether the institution he headed has any credibility left and if it can rebuild trust.

Smyth was a sadistic pervert who for four decades got away with beating boys so viciously in the name of religious instruction they bled and were traumatised physically and emotionally. One of his victims attempted to take his own life as a consequence.

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Smyth’s appalling offending was known about as early as 1982, yet he went to his grave in 2018 aged 77 without facing court because the church did nothing and stood by while he relocated to southern Africa where his abuse continued.

He may have done even worse than administer beatings. A 16-year-old boy was found dead in a swimming pool at a camp run by Smyth in Zimbabwe. Though the cause of his death was drowning, that poor child had suffered a serious head injury.

Archbishop Welby was alerted to Smyth’s abuse in 2013 but took no action against him. Only when Channel 4 News exposed Smyth in 2017 did a police investigation begin.

Would the church ever have revealed what it knew about this horrific litany of crimes against children had not investigative journalism forced its hand?

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The timing of Archbishop Welby’s decision to do nothing about Smyth is a further indication of how out-of-touch with public concerns over child abuse the church had become.

In 2013, only a year had passed since the sex offending of Jimmy Savile came to light following his death in 2011.

Institutions that had harboured Savile, including the NHS and BBC, were soul-searching about their failures to spot him as the monster he had been for decades.

Never before had the issue of sexual abuse of children been so at the forefront of national debate. Politicians and the public alike were resolute in their determination nobody like Savile should ever go undetected again.

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Did that not resonate at the highest levels of the Church of England? If it did not, it should have done.

The clearest indication no lessons were learned is demonstrated by the offenders who were eventually dragged into the light after being kept in the shadows by those in charge. Smyth may have been the worst, but he was far from the only one.

There was Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes, jailed in 2015 for abusing 18 young men. Ball’s offending went back 20 years and had been known about, but he was allowed to continue officiating at services. He was one of 15 clergy from the Chichester diocese convicted of child sex offences.

There was Timothy Storey, a church youth worker from London, who in 2016 was convicted of three offences of rape. He had been allowed to keep on working with children after “repenting”.

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There was the Rev John Roberts, who became a canon of Liverpool Cathedral despite being convicted of assaulting a boy of 15.

Others, like Smyth, died before they could face justice.

Justin Welby’s resignation may not be the last among senior church figures. Yet even after he has gone, the response of the church to years of scandal is underwhelming.

All the talk is of new “policies and procedures”. What policies and procedures can possibly compensate for an institutional mindset that has refused to report criminal wrongdoing to police as soon as it came to light?

What comes next for the Church of England is unclear. But one thing is plain – its shameful tolerance of depraved offenders within its ranks has betrayed victims and destroyed public faith in it.

Andrew Vine writes a regular column every Tuesday in The Yorkshire Post.

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