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Some members of the General Synod, the church’s national assembly, launched a petition calling on Welby to step down, saying he had “lost the confidence of his clergy”.
“I believe that stepping down is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I love dearly and have had the honor of serving,” he said in a statement.
The strongest outcry came from the victims of John Smyth, a prominent lawyer who over five decades abused teenagers and young men at Christian summer camps in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Andrew Morse, who was beaten repeatedly by Smyth over a five-year period, said the resignation was an opportunity for Welby to begin repairing the damage caused by the church’s handling of historic abuse cases more broadly.
“I believe now is an opportunity for him to resign,” Morse told the BBC before Welby stepped down.
“I say opportunity in the sense that it would be an opportunity for him to stand with the victims of the Smyth abuse and all the victims who were not treated appropriately by the Church of England in their own cases of abuse.”
Welby’s resignation comes against a backdrop of widespread historical sexual abuse in the Church of England.
The 2022 report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found that respect for the authority of priests, taboos surrounding discussing sexuality and a culture that gave more support to alleged perpetrators than their victims helped make the Church of England the Church of England a place where abusers could hide “.
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