WHO would have thought that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s mission of reconciliation could bring together the Revd Dr Ian Paul and the Revd Robert Thompson; the Church Society and The Guardian’s leader writer; Nick Timothy MP and the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley — all of them united in the determination to drive the Archbishop from his office? As the shock of their success recedes, we might remember that a media mob for Jesus is still a media mob.
If I were to teach a class in journalistic malpractice, the past few days would furnish a whole term’s worth of examples. One might start with the importance of spelling the names right — Giles Fraser, in UnHerd, wrote 1500 words about “John Smythe” and the subs did not catch it. He then sets out his case against the Archbishop.
“As early as 1981, reports were being written about what Smythe was up to.” No. It was one report, with a circulation of seven people, all of whom conspired to suppress it.
“The young men who received these beatings would have talked to each other.” But we know that they didn’t. “Is it credible a dormitory officer, with some level of pastoral responsibility, would really be so unaware?” It is entirely credible. The beatings almost all took place in Winchester, where Welby never was. The staff at Winchester College — a boarding school — came to see Smyth as a creep and a cult leader, but they did not know of the beatings until one victim tried to kill himself. The boys concealed their injuries from their parents. But Welby alone is blamed for not knowing.
The central sentence, suggesting a deliberate cover-up on the Archbishop’s part, is this: “[Smyth’s abuse] was, the Makin Report concludes, an ‘open secret amongst a whole variety of people connected with the Conservative Evangelical network’, and ‘badly kept’. So the Makin Report is surely correct soberly to conclude it is ‘unlikely’ that Justin Welby didn’t know.”
Didn’t know what, and when didn’t he know it? It is obvious in hindsight that he should have talked in person to the survivors. They saw him as their social equal, and someone enmeshed in the Iwerne/HTB network. He could have known much more if he had really wanted to. He owed them on both counts. But that’s a long way from conscious guilty knowledge.
Who did know? Makin is frustratingly imprecise, though he does finger Lord Carey, who was sent an edited version of the Ruston report when he ran a theological college that Smyth briefly attended: “There is definite evidence that many Church Officers, including a Bishop knew of the abuses in the UK [before 2012]. In addition, it is probable that another Bishop knew of the abuse, with a further Bishop being told a partial account of the abuse by a victim. A significant number of those that were aware of the abuse at this time were very senior figures within the Church of England, or went on to very senior positions including Archbishops and Queen’s Chaplains.”
Archbishops, plural. Is the other one supposed to be Justin Welby? Even after the abuse was formally reported, he did not know — and no bishop was then told — the gory details. The blood, the shit, and the nappies all remained wrapped in the Ruston report in a sealed envelope in Giles Rawlinson’s attic until they were handed to Andrew Graystone with instructions to make the problem go away.
THE Telegraph reported that “After the abuse was reported to senior figures — including Welby — in 2013 [sic], Smyth moved to Zimbabwe and set up a camp for young boys. ‘Church officers knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring,’ the report said.”
The same elision is apparent in The Guardian: “The report by Keith Makin described the abuse as ‘prolific, brutal and horrific’. The C of E ‘knew at the highest level about the abuse’ but its response was ‘wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up’.” Again, the first phrase describes the situation after July 2013, when the Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop’s chaplain were informed. The second refers to the Titus Trust’s attempts to manage Smyth, who simply ignored them.
The facts were just bundled away when they held up the narrative. The facts that seem really illuminating to me — for instance, that the Revd Sue Colman, one of the mustard millionaires who funded John Smyth in Zimbabwe, was also at one stage safeguarding officer at HTB — are facts only if you know what HTB is. And no one does.
Perhaps it was right, or honourable, for the Archbishop to take responsibility for things over which he had no real control. But let’s not pretend that he had that control. The Archbishop of Canterbury has no great power over the Bishop of Newcastle, let alone the Archbishop of Cape Town or the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Brompton. This is too complicated a fact to get into the newspapers, and the story as it has appeared will be immensely damaging to the Church and, indeed, Christianity. Nor will the reconciliation of his enemies outlast the Archbishop’s departure.