THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey resigned his permission to officiate (PTO) at the start of this month, citing his advancing years and time in ministry.

On Monday, the BBC reported that Lord Carey had, in the early 1990s, been involved in reinstating David Tudor after a five-year suspension for sexual abuse (News, 17 December).

Lord Carey told the BBC that he did not remember Mr Tudor’s name, and his letter on 4 December did not mention the BBC investigation.

He wrote: “I wish to surrender my Permission to Officiate. I am in my ninetieth year now and have been in active ministry since 1962 when I was made Deacon and then Priested in 1963. It has been an honour to serve in the dioceses of London, Southwell, Durham, Bristol, Bath and Wells, Canterbury and finally Oxford.”

Lord Carey’s PTO had previously been withdrawn during the Makin review of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth (News, 19 June 2020). The report, published in November, said that Lord Carey had been given a report on Smyth’s abuse when he was Principal of Trinity Theological College, Bristol, in 1983. Lord Carey denies receiving any such report.

Lord Carey’s PTO was reinstated in early 2021 (News, 29 January 2021).

He had previously withdrawn from ministry, and resigned his position as an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford, in 2017, after the publication of a report on the handling of Bishop Peter Ball’s abuse (News, 22 June 2017).

In that instance, Lord Carey’s PTO was reinstated in February 2018, though he never returned to the position of honorary assistant bishop.