Church of England: why the archbishop’s resignation isn’t justice for abuse survivors

Justin Welby resigned as archbishop of Canterbury following a damning report about a prolific child abuser in the Church of England. The report into decades of abuse of more than 100 boys perpetrated by the barrister John Smyth QC in the UK, South Africa and Zimbabwe detailed the Church of England’s cover-up of the abuse.

It found that Welby failed to act on safeguarding concerns after he was notified of the abuse in 2013. This, and the fact that he had an acquaintanceship with Smyth since they were briefly colleagues in the 1970s, left his position untenable.

“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in his resignation statement. There have since been more calls for church figures to resign.

Thousands of survivors of institutional child abuse all over the UK will have watched the unfolding news with a mixture of wearied recognition and horror. Many will be retraumatised.

The Church of England’s response contains rhetoric about “victim-centred” and “trauma-informed” responses to Smyth’s victims, and the promise of future reform that will act on the advice of experts.

This is a familiar story cycle for those of us who study abuse in institutions: scandal, pressure on a figurehead to resign (initially resisted and then succumbed to), followed by a promise of root-and-branch reform. But what it can often miss is the enduring, corrosive impact these scandals have on all abuse survivors.

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At the heart of institutional child abuse are three parties. First, the victim (or victims). Second, the shadowy figure of the abuser (or abusers). Third, and crucially, the organisation that fails to protect and then compounds the abuse by dismissing, denying or minimising it.

The psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi, writing more than 100 years ago, suggested that it is the witnessing of the abuse by a third party (sometimes described as a bystander), that is key to making the abuse traumatic to the victim.

In other words, the institution is every bit as responsible for the long-term psychological harm as the original abuser. It is in their betrayal in failing to protect and in communicating the shamefulness of what has happened through the cover-up that carries additional traumatic impacts.

From this perspective, the Church of England in this case not only failed to safeguard these children, but was an active partner in causing harm to them. Survivor scepticism about promises of institutional reform may appear cynical to well-intentioned reformists. But this is a way to manage what victims see as an ongoing threat from the institution by not taking what they say at face value.

What is so saddening about the Church of England’s response so far is that it also fits into a survivor worldview that can deepen their trauma. The focus on the institution, which has already failed survivors, makes the prospect for real change feel even more hopeless. This sense of a “foreshortened future” – where survivors feel that life will not improve for them, that their life is already behind them and hope of positive change and growth have disappeared – is a key feature of trauma.

A clerical response

Religious institutions are particularly poorly placed to make the changes they need to in the wake of abuse scandals, to prevent future harms and to deliver the justice that victims demand.

While there is no doubt genuine contrition, there is also a recognisably religious tone to the solutions proposed. This is evident when religious orders seek to manage serious child abusers through internal mechanisms and using prayer and other religious practices as a solution to both alleviate harm to victims and promote the rehabilitation of abusers.

There is a clericalism in these responses that mirrors the conditions that led to abusers like Smyth being able to act with impunity in the first place.

Clericalism refers to a phenomenon in religious institutions whereby the theological foundation on which institution operates is according to church law and connected to divine providence, and therefore given primacy. Secular law is left necessarily subordinate.

Clearly, when it comes to safeguarding children, this is not an approach that has worked well for the church. And yet it is a belief so deeply ingrained it is difficult for it to be recognised by those subject to it.

One suggestion for the Church of England is to take a break from focusing on scripture and have a read of the poet and activist Audre Lorde, who observed that: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Above all, what needs to be communicated is a message of realistic hope, followed by action that realises the promise of that fragile hope. A demonstration that institutions can learn from examples of others that have responded well to their failures, without trying to locate them in a distant past. Evidence that survivors can heal from child abuse and can be supported to talk about their experiences in a way that feeds into substantive institutional change. And a willingness for the institution to subject itself to external regulation and to act in partnership with survivor-led groups who understand the differences between shallow and meaningful reform.

This is painstaking work, and it will necessitate the loss of privilege in religious institutions, and of long-held beliefs about their divine right to regulate themselves. But without it, all talk of being victim-centred is just that – talk.

Danny Taggart previously worked at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and he currently works with a service that supports trauma survivors’ engagement with religious orders.