Possible trigger warning / Sexual abuse
With countless numbers of Anglicans and ecumenical partners around the world the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury on November 12, 2024 was shocking and a total surprise, at least to me.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned, days after a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England. In his resignation statement, Justin Welby says the report “exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth”. He says when he was told in 2013 that police had been notified, “I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.” [BBC online]
A friend and colleague, the recently consecrated Bishop Clara Plamondon of the Territory of the People Anglican Church based in Kamloops BC was attending a conference for new bishops at Canterbury Cathedral in the UK on the day of the resignation announcement. I am sure that for those conference participants, time stood still in that ancient worship space.
All respondents to the resignation, including Archbishop Welby’s statement itself, place the experience and post-traumatic needs of victims front and centre. The damage done is incalculable — sexual abuse combined with sadistic violence — there are no words to express the horror. I am told by survivors in a number of abusive situations that the effects are often lifelong. To avoid confronting the situation at first discovery only compounds the damage.
We pray with confidence in funeral liturgies: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them.” (Rev 14:13) Well, that cuts two ways. Judgment will come, but it is not ours to administer the exam. We can however limit the influence of evil and administer appropriate discipline.
Are there others who should likewise resign? Likely so. Is this a time for a more widespread repentance? I think so. Connections with the UK evangelical community and one of Britain’s great schools, Winchester College are named in relation to Smyth’s work with boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Investigative standards and responsibilities have evolved over the past forty years. Truth-telling is always best even when the truth is painful and humiliating.
Enough secrets and lies. Enough cover-ups. Stop shuttling problematic persons to other settings. Enough! When will we learn? Are we learning? My own Canadian Church is held by many Anglicans globally as a place of best practice regarding safeguarding (often called “Safe Church”). Do not be surprised however that we continue to discover such situations here at home. (I have discovered and I hope responded to claims of sexual misconduct in almost every parish I have ever served.) At least we discover more of these now, sometimes in the early stages of grooming, at times when intervention can quickly provide safety and in some cases, healing.
Enough from me. If you have some thoughts please comment; or in confidence email me at grayintheforest@shaw.ca Here is Bishop Clara’s November 12, 2024 letter:
Dear Siblings in Christ,
I write to you from Canterbury Cathedral in the UK where I am half way through the New Bishop’s course.
By now, you likely have heard of the resignation of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury due to the recent revelations about the long and heinous abuses of John Smyth exposed in the Makin Review. In his resignation letter, Archbishop Welby acknowledged he had been made aware of these abuses in 2013 and wrongly believed that when the police were notified, that an appropriate resolution would follow.
Sadly, that did not happen, resulting in further harm.
We grieve deeply with and for those who were hurt so deeply, and pray for mercy and healing. I am very much aware of how this type of event can cause further distress to those who have been harmed by those in positions of power, particularly in the church. For this I am deeply saddened, and ask that you be mindful of those around you who may be affected by this news.
It brings home to me, yet again, how critically important it is for all of us to take seriously our responsibility to guard and protect, as best we can, all who are vulnerable in our communities. I ask that we the Territory of the People commit to the hard work of healing, safeguarding and protecting the dignity of every human being.
As your bishop, I make that commitment to you.
I have included a link to Acting Primate, Archbishop Anne Germond’s response here
[My own Bishop of Kootenay, Archbishop Lynne McNaughton’s response is here]
I ask for your prayers for all who have been impacted by this situation. If you have questions, please contact our Territory Office. I will be better able to respond on my return to Canada.
In Christ’s Service,
The Rt. Rev. Clara Plamondon
Bishop – Territory of the People (Anglican Church)
Take Note - Reflections on life, music, politics, retirement and more by Ken Gray 
So sad â¦
My husband was physically abused at the Residential School in Port Alberni, as were some of his sisters. It was an Anglican school. One of the men who worked there tried to sexually abuse him, but he fought back. Many of his friends from his village were not so âfortunate.â The first day he was taken to the residential school, before he even went in the building, he was forced to dig a grave for a little boy who just passed away. He was also abused (violence) at the Indian Day School in Old Massett (an Anglican community).
Others of his sisters were placed in Mormon foster homes in southern Alberta. While they were treated quite well, several others from his village, boys especially, were worked very hard on the Mormon farms. When they arrived, they were placed on a stage in their underwear and the Mormon farmers picked out the sturdiest looking ones (like happened in the US during slavery).
When my husband was about 6 or 7, he was taken away from his family and sent to the Indian Sanitorium and âtreatedâ (experimented on daily with big needles of various drugs) for nearly a year. Then he was sent home. They admitted that he never did have TB to start withâ¦. That was a government thing, not a church thing. So many people at the sanitorium died while he was there.
norma
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Thanks for your comment Norma. Sad . . . or angry! The atrocities perpetrated against Indigenous students at residential and day schools are horrendous. To dig a grave prior to entering a school is to me, unbelievable, though I know such things to be true. I had no knowledge of the Mormon farms you mention, from a church that has long proclaimed the value and practice of family values. Where did we go so wrong, because certainly I am part of or at least an uncritical inheritor of a culture which allowed the schools to continue, even when perpetrators were identified. We were created for good, to do and be better. The struggle for truth and justice continues. In solidarity and compassion, Ken
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I was sexually engaged over a three year period within the very walls of the church my father was pastor of, by an older teen in the congregation. He was later found murdered in a city park late one night. Knowing inside me that the last thing on earth I should do is tell someone in authority says it all–that even 8 yr olds already and instinctively know that such truth-telling is the last thing the churched want to hear about. I never admitted what happened to my father until I was in my 20s, and even then the reaction was a tempered one.
It has taken me almost 70 years to process and arrive at the conclusion that what we were up to in that empty upstairs nursery wasn’t the major abuse, though without question abuse it was–I was very much a minor and should never have been approached–but once I was, I was hooked and was the one who kept it all going on those Saturdays–IOW it was consensual and yes, I dare say now, enjoyable. Rather, it was the heavily-laden and oppressively-pervasive judgemental atmosphere ruling that ‘holy’ space which thundered into my conscience that my only choice was to hide and deflect and learn to perfectly lie and compartmentalize and live in secrecy.
It all ended at age twelve when our Sunday School teacher read a few verses from Leviticus and nailed us with a look of starkness and intoned, ‘there is a special place in hell for men who lie with men’. I instantly became so sanctified that I treated him like a leper, refusing to even look at him. My schoolwork went so downhill my parents had me examined by the school psychologist. I became problematic and entombed myself in such an iron-willed closet, that it took three psychiatrists, and numerous therapists and forty years to finally be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘Lance, you’re gay’.
That truth then wrecked my marriage, my calling, my reputation and standing–all that my closeted self tried to craft and design–and banished me to another city. I became a cook. And now? I am 22 years with my husband. I was confirmed and am a thankful, grateful Anglican, within a national communion where speaking such truths is not an anathema but a tonic, a necessity for one’s wholeness. I am very saddened about Justin Welby’s own hurt and deeply-felt regrets because I admire him as a man of God, regardless. We are, at the end of the day, all sinners.
Sexual abuse within liturgical settings is so veiled in terrible secrecies that even its discovery is but one of multitudinous truths needing to be unpacked and brought to the light of day–and even then there are almost certainly more lurking in the murk. It’s tentacles enwrap even the ones who uncover it, daring them to try and bring about sufficient justice to the perpetrator(s). My teenage ‘abuser’ (I have great trouble labelling him as such to this day, for if he was that, then so, indeed was I) lies in an untimely grave, almost certainly himself a victim of a gay bashing. That in itself bears witness to how this topic is so laminated in layers of complexity that its nuances and ripples aren’t so easily bundled-up in the conveniently-coined term ‘abuse’.
I am grateful for the invitation to this forum. And I have great appreciation for this blog post, and am thankful to those who read it and learn from it and live in its truths–and most dearly for its author.
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Thanks Lance for your fine comment. Some of it I knew already; some is news to me. Your story is both tragic and victorious. You are resilient and faithful; and a fine writer. Thanks again for sharing. I am sure your story will help others. In friendship, Ken
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