THE Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has added her voice to calls for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign in response to the Makin report on John Smyth, now thought to be the most prolific abuser in the Church of England (News, 8 November).
Speaking to Radio 4’s World at One on Monday, she said: “Sadly, I think his position is untenable, so I think he should resign.”
The Makin report was “truly horrific, horrendous and shocking”, she said. Survivors and others were asking: “‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe? And I think the answer at the moment is ‘No.’”
Asked about the Church’s response to the report, she said: “I think ‘disappointing’ is perhaps an understatement. I think it’s very hard for the Church as the national, the Established, Church to continue to have a moral voice, in any way, shape, or form in our nation, when we cannot get our own house in order with regard to something as critically important, something that would be asked of any institution, let alone the Church, which is meant to have the gospel of Jesus Christ, looking out for the most vulnerable, in our midst. We are in danger of losing complete credibility on that front.”
While changes had been made to improve safeguarding, she said: “You do have to ask the question, culturally, has change really embedded in the institution, when its leadership cannot take ownership and responsibility of its mistakes?”
The Archbishop’s resignation would not solve the problem, she said, but would be “a very clear indication that a line has been drawn and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.
To date, Dr Hartley is the only bishop to call for the Archbishop’s resignation. Interviewed on Radio 4’s Sunday programme, the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, who is the lead bishop for safeguarding, said that she believed, and trusted, his claim to have known nothing of the abuse before 2013. Refusing to be drawn on whether or not he should resign, she said: “I support the Archbishop’s apology, I’m glad he’s made it.”
On Monday night, the BBC’s Newsnight programme reported that 11 diocesan bishops had been unsuccessfully approached for comment.
On Monday afternoon, Dr Hartley posted on social media a copy of a letter that she had received from both Archbishops, dated 31 October — one week before the publication of the Makin review. It relates to Dr Hartley’s suspension of the former Archbishop of York Lord Sentamu from active ministry (News, 19 May 2023), after he had rejected a finding from a safeguarding review that he had failed to act on a non-recent disclosure of abuse while he was at Bishopthorpe.
The review concerned the abuse perpetrated by a priest, the late Trevor Devamanikkam (News, 12 May 2023). Dr Hartley subsequently decided that she was unable to grant Lord Sentamu Permission to Officiate (PTO) within her diocese after he had declined to apologise for his response to the review (News, 28 July 2023).
In their letter to Dr Hartley, the Archbishops write that they “entirely support and understand” her decision to withhold PTO. But they also express sympathy for Lord Sentamu, arguing that he “undoubtedly has a point” with regard to concerns about the conduct of the lessons-learned review and its conclusions. For Lord Sentamu, they write, “this feels like an issue of justice”. They also note that the National Safeguarding Team had concluded that there were “no current safeguarding concerns” that would affect his ability to minister.
Their letter does not state that Lord Sentamu would be willing to apologise for his public statement in response to the review, but does state that he is willing to work with Dr Hartley on “an agreed statement” that would “acknowledge the difficulties” caused by his response. They express a hope that this would enable her to agree to his return to ministry. The letter, which makes clear that the Archbishops wish to see Lord Sentamu’s return to ministry, begins with reference to its being “something you want to happen as well”.
In a statement posted with a copy of this letter, Dr Hartley suggests that its proximity to the publication of the Makin review, “signifies a wider and systemic dysfunction of how the hierarchy of The Church of England has dealt with matters of safeguarding and most particularly the impact of church-related abuse on victims and survivors. Moreover, the archbishops’ use of what I experienced as coercive language when I read their letter indicates a complete lack of awareness of how power dynamics operate in the life of the Church.”
In response to a request for comment on Monday evening, Dr Hartley said that she had nothing further to add to her statement or to her interview with BBC News.
Later, the webpage containing Dr Hartley’s statement was updated to include her reply to the Archbishops, in which she expressed willingness to consider the issue of PTO for Lord Sentamu if he made a “full and unreserved apology” for his comments.
“I am willing to work (via yourselves) on an agreed statement with Sentamu,” she wrote. Complaints of coercion were not included in this letter.
A spokesperson for the Archbishop of York said that the letter to Dr Hartley had been “part of a collaborative approach to find a resolution that could enable Lord Sentamu to return to ministry without diminishing the impact of his comments or interfering with the Bishop of Newcastle’s jurisdiction and responsibilities. This approach followed a series of confidential conversations with the Bishop of Newcastle.”
The spokesperson said that Archbishop Cottrell was “saddened that this letter is now being described as coercive. This was not his intention, nor did he wish to cause any distress to the Bishop of Newcastle.
“The Archbishop of York continues to be committed to further independence for safeguarding within the Church of England, the independent scrutiny of safeguarding and a much better victim-centred and trauma-informed approach to the culture of safeguarding within the Church of England,” the spokesperson said.
Archbishop Welby told Channel 4 News last week that, having taken advice from senior colleagues, he had decided not to resign. “If I’d known before 2013 or had grounds for suspicions, that would be a resigning matter then and now. But I didn’t.”
Lambeth Palace reiterated his position to the BBC on Monday.
The Makin review concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was “unlikely that Justin Welby would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding John Smyth in the 1980s in the UK”.
It found also that, while the Archbishop had acted within safeguarding policies in place in 2013, and had been the recipient of an inaccurate report that a police investigation was under way, he had had “a personal and moral responsibility to pursue this further, whatever the policies at play at the time required”.
Archbishop Welby has apologised for his “profound failures”, having “personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated”.
Dr Hartley’s call follows a growing movement on social media calling for the Archbishop’s resignation, led by members of the clergy. An online petition, started by the Vicar of St James’s, West Hampstead, in London, the Revd Robert Thompson, has gathered more than 4000 signatures.
Speaking on Channel 4 News on Monday, another organiser of the petition, the Revd Dr Ian Paul, who is a member of the Archbishops’ Council, said: “We are asking for Justin to resign not as a sort of token gesture but as the first step to seeing some really serious change in the culture of senior leadership.” The Archbishop had “no credibility” when it came to reforming safeguarding, he said.
A victim of Smyth, Mark Stibbe, a former Vicar of St Andrew’s, Chorleywood, told the programme that the Archbishop should resign “because he didn’t do the right thing. He and the Bishop of Ely should have made sure that these abuses were reported to the authorities, but he admits . . . that he failed to act properly and rigorously and responsibly between 2013 and 2017.” For his fellow survivors, “every single day whilst this was not being dealt with was a further day of torment.”
He described how his best friend at school had tried to commit suicide in 1982, then again on Christmas day in 2013. “If this thing had been properly reported and dealt with in the middle of 2013 . . . maybe this would have been prevented.”
Mr Stibbe knew of no survivor that did not share the view that the Archbishop should resign. “We want there to be a lasting legacy of something good from all this horror and one of those things could be justice for the survivors, which would mean people standing down by acknowledging their responsibility,” he said.
There needed to be a “clean sweep of the hierarchy of the C of E”, Mr Stibbe told Newsnight. He praised those, like Dr Hartley, who had “integrity and intentionality when it comes to protecting the vulnerable”. The Church needed people with “a proven passion for this”.
Earlier this year, Dr Hartley said that it was “disgraceful” that the General Synod had not agreed immediately to adopt a new and independent safeguarding structure, as recommended by Professor Alexis Jay (News, 1 March). At a subsequent meeting of the Synod, however, she said that further consultation with victims and survivors had softened her stance, and that she believed that further exploration of the options was the best way forward (News, 8 July).
Of the 25 bishops who responded to a survey published in May, only three said that they backed a new, independent organisation to take on the Church’s safeguarding brief; two-thirds said that they disagreed; and the rest reported that they were unsure (News, 31 May).
This story was significantly updated on 12 November