by Anthony Bash
Forgiveness
Justin Welby was asked in Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 30 March 2025, ‘Do you forgive John Smyth?’ Welby answered,
‘Yes. I think if he were alive, and I saw him – but it’s not me he abused. He’s abused the victims and survivors. So, whether I forgive or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant.’
Welby is not a victim of the physical abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. Smyth did not beat him when he was a minor with hundreds of strokes and left him scarred and bleeding. In this regard, Welby has nothing to forgive. He is a third party, an outsider, a critic of what happened, but not the subject of Smyth’s brutality.
A church which perpetrates the view that it is possible for people to forgive those who do not wrong them holds an absurd view of forgiveness. What has forgiveness got to do with anyone except those who have been wronged?
In answering ‘Yes’ and then qualifying what he meant by ‘Yes’ and acknowledging his forgiveness was, to a large extent, ‘irrelevant’, Welby discloses the muddle that lies at the heart of his approach to forgiveness – an approach that mirrors the approach of the Church of England generally.
On the one hand, forgiveness is seen as an overarching good, to be offered at all times, in all circumstances, whether sought or not. People think it promotes reconciliation and wellbeing, and that it avoids conflict and division. Without it, so it is said, there can be no peace.
On the other hand, Welby recognises – despite having said he forgave Smyth – that his is not the place to forgive, as he is not a victim of Smyth’s brutality. We go further: it’s not that Welby’s forgiveness is ‘to a large extent, irrelevant’: it is irrelevant.
Welby’s answer wants things both ways. Welby offers something to everyone and thereby satisfies no one. In fact, his answer could offend everyone – either for forgiving when some say he shouldn’t or for saying forgiving is irrelevant when others say it is not. This approach is an example of the besetting Anglican sin of keeping everyone on board and offending no one. The victims of abuse know this ‘have-your-cake-and-eat-it’ approach doesn’t work – as gays and women in the church will also testify.
This is the reply I suggest Welby could have given Laura Kuenssberg in response to her question, ‘Do you forgive John Smyth?’
No, Laura, I do not. Smyth did not abuse me. If Smyth were still alive and I saw him, I would confront him about what he had done, and tell him he needed to surrender to the police to make a full confession. I would also urge him to contact his victims and to put right with them, as best he could, what he had done. He would need to make some sort of reparation in demonstration of a change of heart. Without something like this, he will not have forgiveness from the victims, and there can be no place for him in the life of the church of Christ.
What is lacking in what Welby said is what lies at the heart of forgiveness – remorse, repentance, reparation. Remorse and repentance are the result of a change of moral perspective and precede forgiveness. They demonstrate a commitment both to act differently and to be different in the future. The result is more than words of regret but appropriate reparative action.
The church’s overarching commitment should therefore not be to forgiveness as an end in itself. Rather, it should be to truth, integrity, and honesty. It should be to do right, to call out what is wrong, to seek justice, and to expose lies, deceit, and cover up. Forgiveness may then result, but not necessarily. The church’s focus is mistakenly on the goal, not on the means.
Personal Responsibility
In the interview, Welby spoke of feeling ‘overwhelmed’ by the number of allegations of abuse the church had received in 2013. He is ‘utterly sorry’ and said he felt ‘a deep sense of personal failure’. Though not said, this failure includes not initiating cultural and structural changes to the church between 2013 and 2024: additional safeguarding officers and a welcome change in culture for preventive safeguarding are not the only answer. Welby’s bland ‘corporate-speak’ reason for resigning – ‘personal responsibility for shortcomings’ – obscures the fact that he failed to provide leadership about an issue that has engulfed the church in shame.
Apart from asking for pity because he had felt so overwhelmed, saying (as if an excuse) ‘I had a difficult upbringing’ (it was Eton College, and then Trinity College, Cambridge), and eventually giving up by resigning, what did Welby personally do to put right his errors when he became aware of them? What model of the gospel did Welby demonstrate by his actions?
What has not happened under Welby’s watch is compensation for victims of historic abuse. There have also not been independent investigations of mishandled cases of historic abuse and cover up. Neither have there been independent investigations of cases where safeguarding has been weaponised to cause harm. Rather, the church remains detached from mechanisms of public accountability and independent scrutiny. The church’s perspective has been to look forward, and not to acknowledge and face past mistakes and their consequences. So, the extent of the unaddressed problems has not been acknowledged, and victims of abuse still have no remedy, reparation, justice, or closure. We asked above, ‘What did Welby personally do to put right his errors when he became aware of them?’ The answer is: Not much.
The example of Graham, one of those abused by Smyth, illustrates the church’s failure to properly address the past. In Kuenssberg’s broadcast, Graham said he had had ‘the most extraordinary, traumatic journey trying to get answers, trying to get any kind of support’ from the church and that his experience of historic abuse by Smyth ‘paled into insignificance’ in comparison with what the church had put him through. Even if there is a degree of hyperbole about what Graham says (and I am not suggesting there is), his statement is an extraordinary indictment of what he says is the greater abuse he experienced perpetrated in the name of the church.
When asked whether he accepts that (in Welby’s words) Welby ‘really is sorry’, Graham said that Welby has not contacted him personally or apologised. He regards Welby as having ‘blanked’ him and the other survivors of Smyth’s abuse, and as refusing to tell the truth. Graham concluded, ‘We’re the victims and we deserve to know what happened. We don’t yet.’
Institutional Responsibility
Without going into much detail in the interview, Welby also said that he accepted ‘institutional responsibility for long-term revelations of cover up and failure over a long period.’ The cover up and failure have many causes. A future Archbishop of Canterbury will need to identify the causes and address them. The causes include the following. There is no legal requirement to report allegations of abuse (‘mandatory reporting’). There is lack of resource to deal adequately with reports of abuse. Investigations into alleged abuse are conducted ‘in house’, by people who may wish to avoid public shame and scandal for the church. The church is not subject to the Nolan Principles setting out professional standards of conduct in public life; neither is it subject to the same statutory framework of regulation and accountability as secular institutions. In short, there is lack of statutory regulation, lack of resource – and perhaps even of resolution – as well as a culture of amateurism at the heart of the church and its institutions. The church is not adequately fitted to safely and responsibly carry out its role in public life. Reform therefore needs to be both statutory and in-house – and urgently.
By walking away, ‘overwhelmed’ by the scale of the problem and having done little to address it when in office, Welby has bequeathed to his successors besetting, unaddressed systemic and structural failure in the church. A new Archbishop will need skill and experience to remedy the failure. A new archbishop will also need conviction that the gospel insists on repentance for sin in the context of truth and justice.
Triple Wounds
The culture of forgiveness that pervades the church, the church’s own failure to respond appropriately to safeguarding allegations, and the church’s lack of moral vigour in its approach to forgiveness are triple wounds for the abused. The abused will, first, carry the wounds of their historic abuse. Second, they will carry wounds from a church that has failed to hear them and to act on what the church has heard. Last, there will be wounds from the church – sometimes even from its national leaders – who forgive abusers when they have no business to do so and do not see the absurdity of what they are doing. The result is that the abused will have to learn to survive the historical abuse they have suffered, the neglect of the church, and the wounds of (perhaps well-meaning but) theologically naïve forgivers.
Anthony Bash is author with Martyn Percy of Forgiveness, Remorse, Reparation: Reckoning with Truthful Apology (Ethics Press,2025).
Speechless for once-not my usual position! A Prince Andrew moment? Just such a pity there was that dreadful comment at the end. If seeking to hurt victims, and shock bystanders, it could not really have been much worse.
By doing interviews like this , Justin is hoping he himself will be quickly forgiven for the mistakes he made during his tenure as Archbishop. However in doing so, he is
making his desired outcome for himself far less likely.
Stop digging.
V. perceptive! “…..if even Smyth can be forgiven, then so can I……..” Is this what JW is suggesting to us?
Has Welby asked Jeremy Corbyn for forgiveness for his character assassination over bogus antisemitism slurs?
Yes, quite, but could I quibble over one point? Welby might have been at Eton, then Trinity College, Cambridge, but he *did* have a difficult upbringing: alcoholism and neglect at home alternating with the 24/7 abusive environment of boarding school. The point is that by the time he was a clergyman, never mind Archbishop of Canterbury, he should have dealt with the effects of that enough not to cause such harm.
Yes, the golden lesson from bullying scandals is inevitably the absolute need to always confront bullies. This is what rarely seems to happen in the Anglican Church.
Brilliant. Hits the nail on the head. Thank you !
I am nearly accused of hyperbole ! Not quite.
I would like to comment. In a few brief ( though agonising ) sessions over 40 years ago, I was brutally assaulted, though at the time I had been brainwashed into believing it was right and would help my soul. It was diabolical, but actually brief.
Then, for thirty years, I lived with the memory, the confusion, the shame, the secret.
In 2012, when I came forward, I naively thought some well oiled machine would swing into place. I thought a process would start, counselling would be provided, investigations would start, justice would be served, Smyth would be stopped, that I would be taken seriously, that I could get to place of understanding, of perspective, a position where I (and the world) would be told what happened, that honesty and truth would prevail.
Instead, for thirteen years now, I have fought the blob, the system, the callous indifference and incompetence of the church. I have been lied to, misled, led a merry dance, lied to again, and then been floored by the sheer, overwhelming incompetence of process. Victims of John Smyth still do not have the truth; Smyth evaded justice by the gross negligence of all those who knew in 2013; our story is part, but only part, told. In my professional, and personal life, I have never come across such a bureaucratic, incompetent, buck-passing, immoral, callous bunch of people as is peopled by the CofE, the NST, the episcopacy, the mind numbing, deflecting, dissembling, walk on the other side, so called Christian , creatures of the hierarchy.
So, back to hyperbole. Yes, the last 13 years of my life has felt like a lifetime. The time in the shed was awful, worse than awful, but ended ( standing in a winter swimming pool, to ease the pain) after a bit. Is 13 years of long, drawn out, life stopping, frustration worse than the abuse ? Yes. The abuse was long ago. The current stringing along, cannot get answers, getting fobbed off, meeting refusing, lying, victim blaming, not-my-job evasion is what consumes me now. Eats away at my soul, my ability to be an independent, grown up, for gods sake move on, human being. We are caught in a whirlpool of injustice.
Hyperbole. No.
He says, “Even if there is a degree of hyperbole about what Graham says (and I am not suggesting there is).” It would have made the terrible lack of hyperbole completely clear to have written instead, “Even if there *were* a degree of hyperbole (and I am not suggesting there is).”
A deceased friend worked in Broadmoor. Their professionalism and humanity was celebrated, legendary really, in each location where they worked. Their style was to try to show kindness and empathy to all, even if it was really hard work at times. They were one of the most kindly and decent people I ever knew, celebrated for their gentleness and respect for all. They engaged with all sorts of offenders, but even as a convinced Christian (they were ordained later in life), they found clerical and church abusers difficult to have time for.
Another very close friend also had professional contact with paedophiles in their work environment. Likewise, having seen the long term damage done to children, they found it a real struggle (and freely admitted this) to form therapeutic relationships with church or other child abusers. The fulness, indeed the immeasurable damage done to child victims, is much better understood now. That is why my friends found working with child abusers such a challenge.
The laity, professionals in the NHS and the law, the media and a host of other groups, all have a deep awareness of the damage done by child abuse and bullying. Yet, sadly, and paradoxically, the Anglican Church leadership continue to drag their heels. The exact, or the very words of Our Lord, perfectly lay plain precisely how serious harming children is. There is zero hyperbole.
Words cannot fully express the pain to child victims. Friday closing time at UK pubs will see various irreverent references made to a boot being applied to the bottom of various global thugs or dictators. On hearing of JW wanting to express how he could forgive JS QC, my immediate instinct would be to want to kick JW.
Kangaroo court justice within Anglicanism continues to harm innocent people. Yet our Archbishops and Bishops lack the courage to publicly own mistakes. This happened long ago within Roman Catholicism, and that denomination has exited a long and dark tunnel of its own construction. We Anglicans need to press for a similar move within Anglicanism.
These sentiments have been echoed quite often by abuse survivors, so it is surprising to have them questioned at all, however gently. It is known that many rape victims would rather not go through the ordeal of a court case, and that would usually only happen once, although very publicly. And It has been acknowledged that even the wait for court proceedings is itself extremely difficult and stressful , but at least during the wait they are not being actively abused by the criminal justice system. It can hardly be surprising then that victims and survivors are so badly scarred by years of deceit, incompetence, threats, bullying , being denounced as troublemakers etc, etc . The sad tale below of Kenneth is only one more example of the vindictiveness meted out to those who seek justice. There has been much documentation of such hostility meted to those that senior clergy and their colleagues wish to silence coupled with the promotion and admiration of some clergy proven to be abusers. It is unsurprising then that this topsy-turvy Anglican view of justice and integrity further harms those already abused . Such mistreatment is particularly invidious and extremely harmful to those already abused who then see either their abuser getting away with it, or those who allowed them to do so it getting away with it, or as is often the case both parties getting away with it. And if the Church really cared about justice and integrity in abuse cases, it would not be necessary for victims and survivors to battle not just for years, but for decades. Personally when I hear clerics spouting about their need for forgiveness in abuse cases, whether in public interviews or from the pulpit, it only makes me think that they believe they have the right to forgiveness by public proxy. How can the general public “forgive” something that did not happen to them? Especially when they are not even members of the institution of which such leaders rather nauseously and self-pityingly publicly rant on about the lack of forgiveness for said leaders. It should not be necessary to point out to Christian leaders what Christian forgiveness actually is, as the article does so well. It only gives the appearance that their need to whitewash their reputations by attempting to solicit pity for their self-engineered situations is all they care about, and makes their vaunted sorrow for those who have been abused seem quite unreal.
The ultimate paradox is how abuser-priests have preached on Easter, presumably including the Sanhedrin picking their own religious institution’s reputation over divine justice……………
In pointing out Welby’s failings Anthony Bash is highlighting those of other senior clergy in the Church of England. He is quite right when he says:
‘This approach is an example of the besetting Anglican sin of keeping everyone on board and offending no one’
That explains the reason Kenneth’s case has dragged on, now entering its sixth year without investigation or scrutiny of evidence. The senior clergy in Kenneth’s case have always tried to please and placate the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser and her team.
Recently I was going to suggest that I might write a blog explaining that although justice has not been served on Kenneth he has come to terms with it and is leading a happy and fulfilling life.
The cause of this happy development is that Kenneth has been asked to prepare the funeral for an elderly house bound lady. For several years, two or three times a week Kenneth has been visiting her. On these visits he would sort out her shopping, prescriptions and do other jobs for her. Three months ago she went into hospital and Kenneth regularly visited her there. On the night she died he sat up with her until death.
Whilst in hospital she sent for her solicitor and added to her will that she wanted Kenneth to organise her funeral. The Dean had seriously offended her whilst she was in hospital (he only visited three times in three months anyway) and she told her friends and relations that she did not want him to be involved in her funeral.
Since her death on 13 February Kenneth has worked tirelessly in making arrangements for the funeral working with a clergy member who was to take part. He was wholly responsible for compiling a booklet for the service and liaising with the funeral directors to make sure it was accurate before publication. The funeral is to take place on Saturday April 5th (today).
I have not seen Kenneth so happy and buoyant as he has been whilst doing this. He was the friend I have always known for sixty years.
Then, three days ago after two months of preparation, the Dean suddenly intervened with devastating results. He forbade his colleague to take part or even go to the funeral. The funeral directors were instructed to delete from the booklet any mention of his colleague because he the Dean was taking the service. This has left Kenneth in a shocking state and his essential tremors are much worse. Clearly the present situation shows Kenneth being victimised once again.The Dean was well aware what was happening and had made no attempt to intervene in two months. At the last minute in this way was little short of cruel.
As Anthony Bash so rightly says, the church’s overarching commitment should be:
‘to truth, integrity, and honesty. It should be to do right, to call out what is wrong, to seek justice, and to expose lies, deceit, and cover up’.
The example of Kenneth’s case has always shown this has never been the case. Now as much as ever this further situation shows yet again this is not to be. Not just him but all other cases of safeguarding abuse. When will it end?
Please pray for Kenneth; he is suffering as much as ever.
That is just awful. What right has the dean to contravene the wishes of the deceased? And to do it in this way and at this time is beyond cruel.
The nonchalance of some Church bullies really rings alarm bells. If a cleric shows no anxiety when doing some clearly horrible moves, then we should possible ask just how many other offences are they guilty of hiding.
Prayers for you Susan and Kenneth.
I am so sorry Graham and all who have suffered and continue to suffer in such a cruel world.
Thank you to you both, Janet and Margaret. Your prayers are needed especially for Kenneth.
To other victims and survivors I continue to pray for you all especially those I know of by name. Each morning between 6.30 and 7.30 am
Thank you so much, Susan. And I will pray for Kenneth.
There are a lot of cases of abuse and also bullying which nothing is done about in the church in which I do know of this only to well. Which does have more than devastating consequences for those who have been affected by this awful travesty
And assuming it is the Diocese with ‘four thousand holes ‘ the Dean will continue to act with total impunity …. And he runs a charity?
It will be scant consolation to Kenneth at present, but he is the one whose deeds reflect the goodness of God, not the hyphenated Dean
I’ve just posted this comment on Thinking Anglicans:
Tim Wyatt writes in The Critical Friend: ‘It is shocking to suggest that even someone guilty of the most horrendous crimes against vulnerable young men, causing lifelong emotional and psychological harm, can be forgiven. It is outrageous for Welby to have the temerity to offer grace out to someone as bad as Smyth. It’s also fundamentally Christian.’
Well, no it isn’t. In Mat 18:6-7 Jesus describes the terrible judgement which will await those who put a stumbling block in the way of ‘these little ones who believe’. Smyth’s brutal and sadistic treatment of these teenagers and young men put a huge stumbling block in their way, and (not surprisingly) some of them can no longer believe. Smyth had to answer to God for that.
In Mat 12:31-32 Jesus tells us that the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. Volumes have been written on what this might mean, but in my view those abusers who deliberately twist the scriptures and sacraments to abuse the vulnerable may well have committed this sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. They have, in full knowledge and intent, recognised the work of the Holy Spirit in a person to draw that person closer to God, and used it to profane the very body that is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and to destroy the victim’s own spirit. Smyth did it when he played on young men’s desire for holiness to carry out on them his sadistic sexual fantasies. Peter Ball did it in a sacramental context of confession. Gordon Rideout did it when he told a young orphan boy that his fondling the lad’s genitals was ‘part of my ministry’. And when he told an orphan girl, who had just been severely beaten, ‘Take hold of my penis. It’s the hand of God.’
Finally, neither the Scriptures nor Anglican tradition teach that we should forgive those who have not confessed, repented, and tried at least to make recompense to those they have wronged. There are a few, such as Jesus on the Cross and Stephen when he was being stoned, who are able to forgive their tormenters. But this is a special work of grace, and in both those cases the people who carried out the executions sincerely believed they were doing what God wanted. Jesus specifically said, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ Would he have forgiven them if they had realised he was the Son of God? We don’t know.
In the course of life, including church life, there are many occasions when we will be given grace to forgive those who annoy us or harm us. But I see no reason why anyone, archbishops included, should forgive abusers who are unrepentant. Instead we should turn our attention to the innocents who have suffered, and go on suffering because we as a church are still not doing enough for them.
It goes much wider and deeper. The Act of Uniformity – what you bind on earth is bound in heaven. The cut-down minigospel of Packer and Stott, attributed to Nash and Torrey (an associate of the Moody industry), and their exotic allies Wimber and Falwell Senior because the far more solid Lloyd-Jones was too “sectarian” to look to for help (contrary to rumour started at the time, Lloyd-Jones distinguished between belief and organisation).
Upper classes who, genuinely innocently, attended schools with chaplains of this mindset, without laying on a finger – and a contingent in my (lower class) school Christian Union – showed signs of it; if you allow yourself to be browbeaten, you become entitled to snobbery. It is so compounded, it defies articulacy.
Have variously the bishops of Guildford let alone Oxford and S Cotterell and J Welby, and Sir Grylls, thought about whether the entrenched “teachings” that surrounded them have harmed them, even when “politely” presented (still there are vicars and laity who believe better than the sources I’ve mentioned)? How much stumbling need a stumbling block inflict on millions of us before we notice we are stumbling?
To an oil salesman, boardroom reshuffles are no big drama really.
We can see an Anglican form of papal infallibility at work within evangelical Anglican networks or related para-church groups. Catholics only put up with one pope, speaking on a limited range of subjects at infrequent intervals. AA [Absolute Authority] means a range of Anglican leaders ignore UK law, Anglican rules or biblical principles of natural justice. Can the result be a ‘Down and Out Diocese’ led by ‘Bishop Clay-foot’?
Are satanic Anglican abuse cover ups the reverse of Blasphemy Against The Holy Spirit? The latter is essentially about describing genuinely prophetic miracles as demonic. The former is about satanically wicked individuals and their activities being covered up, so that Church reputation trumps national law or church rules or biblical principles of justice.
Antony Bash’s contribution reminds me of Bonhoeffer’s words about “cheap grace” which he defined as forgiveness without repentance.
I’m afraid the “Do you forgive …..etc?” is a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question so loved of media interviewers. You can’t get it right either way (try it and see). Forgiveness is a transactional affair; it happens when A expresses penitence and B receives it, kind of like an electrical flash-off between two points of different potential. It happens or it doesn’t happen according to the willing penitence of A and the willing forgiving nature of B. B may be a forgiving person but “forgiveness”, the transaction, does not happen without the penitence of A.
I do wish we could get away from forgiveness being like water flowing out of a pipe.
It’s a bit of a trick question, but since journos usually ask it of clerics, Welby should have been prepared with a sensible answer. Which might have been along the lines of, ‘Smyth hasn’t asked for forgiveness, so the question doesn’t arise,’ or ‘Smyth didn’t abuse me, and it would be presumptuous of me to forgive him on behalf of his victims’. Of course Welby would have been criticised either way, but he might at least have given a little rare comfort to the survivors he has been neglecting for so long.
A dreadful answer! Hard to imagine worse words for victims. Stupid from a practical PR angle, spiritually useless and makes abuse-bullying victims seething mad. Not much sign of repentance, or John Smyth QC seeking forgiveness, on the infamous Channel 4 doorstepping communication.
Has JW even read Dan Allender & Tremper Longman III’s book Bold Love on what so called “forgiveness” looks like with: i evil people, ii culpably codependent people, iii ordinary sinners? Respectively: i utterly detach from all connected systems, ii assert and entrench boundaries, iii leave it to those more sincerely involved.
Instead of getting self-realistically cold feet at (say) junior bishop level, some people accept a heroic and unmindful dare as if to take a dutiful turn at representing some company or at “camp counselling”. Busy appointment panels may have a mixture of motives in shortlisting, so it was his responsibility to help them out honestly.
Since everyone outside the Church is “sectarian” (nulla salus) he has exemplified that religion isn’t spiritual. Playing a “less totally depraved than Smyth” card is shabby chic, when “camps” and the derived “worship styles”, “planting networks” and “teaching series” and – just as much – their diametric opposites, are about browbeating however consumeristically / “sacramentally”.