WITH social media alight with resignation demands, an online petition gathering steam, and journalists canvassing his colleagues, the days leading up to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon carried all the hallmarks of a ministerial career on the brink. There was an inevitability about the news from Lambeth Palace when it finally came. What was striking was how few people spoke out in support of his remaining in office. The Makin review is clear that the Archbishop’s failure was not a procedural one. On formally hearing of John Smyth’s abuse in 2013, he acted in line with the safeguarding policies in place at the time (and was the recipient of incorrect advice about police involvement). But, the review suggests, he had a “personal and moral responsibility” to pursue the matter further. It also casts doubt on the veracity of his testimony, concluding that it is “unlikely” that he had no knowledge of concerns about Smyth in the 1980s.

It is possible that the episcopal silence — bar an intervention by the Bishop of Newcastle — reflected a fear of hypocrisy. Are the Archbishop’s critics among the Bishops confident that no case has passed across their desks that they have not pursued “remorselessly”, to use his own term? The Makin review has set a precedent that simply complying with policy, or trusting that others have matters in hand, may not be sufficient if justice is to be done. Bishops may also have concluded that it was the verdict of the survivors of Smyth’s horrifying abuse who mattered above all. Among those calling on the Archbishop to go was Mark Stibbe, beaten during his time at Winchester College, who told Channel 4 News of the desire for “something good from all this horror”. Justice for survivors meant resignations, he said, “people standing down by acknowledging their responsibility”.

Now that the Archbishop has done so, attention should turn to proper study of the Makin review, a dense 250-page document that sets out in chilling detail how an “open secret” festered in some conservative Evangelical circles for decades, and how easily Smyth was able to perpetrate his crimes. The Bishop of Guildford, a survivor, has referred to the “hopelessly naïve” idea that Smyth’s behaviour could be “regulated”. Among the correspondence reproduced in the review is a letter from Jamie Colman, who chaired the UK trust overseeing Smyth’s work in Zimbabwe, suggesting that a “pastoral arrangement”, including regular prayer, should allay concerns, and citing a scriptural warrant for rejecting the idea that a past “fall” meant “disqualification until the end of the game”. The beatings and other abuses continued. Responsibility for these abject failures must be taken.

Among the most haunting accounts in the review is that of a person who discovered, many years after the event, that Smyth had attended the funeral of his brother, who had taken his own life at an early age. There is now uncertainty, the review notes, about why Smyth was present. While this uncertainty can never be resolved, we do now have an account — five years in the making — that clarifies how our most prolific serial abuser was enabled to act. While the media spotlight now shifts to the Archbishop’s successor, the Church’s task is to study this account, not only as a record of history, but as a guide to the aspects of its own structures, culture, and theology which remain vulnerable to hideous exploitation.