Football managers leave when they’ve lost the dressing room. Justin Welby has lost the vestry and is not going to get it back

Andrew Graystone, Newsnight, 11 November

My thoughts, as they are in all of these issues, are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly. It’s a matter, in the end, for the Church, but I’m not going to shy away from the fact of saying that these are horrific allegations and that my thoughts are with the victims in relation to it

Keir Starmer, 12 November

Archbishop Sancroft’s resignation was about conscience and political allegiance. To resign on a matter of negligence is different

Diarmaid MacCulloch, church historian, The Times, 13 November

I think ultimately his position had become untenable . . . and I say that with regret. . . I found Justin Welby . . . to be a kindly, holy, and well-intentioned individual. . .

He has apologised and I think many reasonable people will accept that. However he has chosen what all too few public figures do these days which is accept institutional responsibility

Alastair Campbell, presenter, The Rest is Politics, X/Twitter, 12 November

It is a tragic that a primacy bringing such profound good in so many areas, conducted by a person of singular faith, courage, humility, and integrity, should end like this. But it seems the Archbishop has concluded that the unheard pleas of survivors, the degree of institutional failure, and the fact that his own role in the case was not impeccable, have together made it impossible for him to continue. His dignity and selflessness are an example to us all

Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, 12 November

Welby should have resigned immediately after the report was published rather than apologising weakly for his “own failings and omissions”. . . By refusing to go until he was forced out by his own vicars, bishops and public opinion, he has further weakened the institution and shown himself up as a hypocrite rather than the moral conscience of the nation

Alice Thomson, The Times, 13 November

I think we’re scapegoating. . . John Smyth is dead, that is very frustrating that he has escaped earthly justice, and it’s a natural human impulse to want to blame somebody else, and sometimes that’s inappropriate

Anne Atkins, Anglican novelist and commentator, Newsnight, 11 November

What John Smyth did was horrific, evil and traumatising. . . Feeling bad about them does no good to anyone. . . What matters most now is the culture that allows cover-up and the moral debt owed to the victims and survivors — and to any who have been damaged second-hand by the outworking of their inflicted trauma.

Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s College, Cambridge, New Statesman website, 11 November