Anglican Church head urged to resign over abuse scandal

The leader of the world's Anglican communion faced growing pressure on Monday to resign after a damning report which concluded the Church of England had covered up a serial abuse case.

Three members of the General Synod, the Church's national assembly, have started a petition demanding that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby quit in the wake of the revelations.

On Monday, Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley became the most senior clergy member yet to join those calls, telling the BBC it would be hard for the Church to "continue to have a moral voice" when "we cannot get our own house in order".

The report found the Church of England -- the mother church of Anglicanism -- was responsible for a catalogue of failures over "prolific, brutal and horrific" abuse by John Smyth, a lawyer who organized evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s.

It confirmed he carried out "traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks" on as many as 130 boys and young men in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa spanning several decades.

Smyth, who lived in Africa from 1984, died aged 75 in South Africa in 2018 while under investigation by British police and never faced any criminal charges.

Labelling him "arguably the most prolific serial abuser" ever associated with the Church, the independent probe found Church officials knew about his abuses by the early 1980s.

But those informed "participated in an active cover-up" which allowed Smyth to continue abusing for decades to come, it confirmed.

Welby, it stated, "could and should" have formally reported the abuse to authorities in 2013.

Appointed the Church of England's highest-ranking cleric that year, Welby said last week he was "deeply sorry that this abuse happened" and that he "had no idea or suspicion of this abuse" before then.

He told Britain's Channel 4 News that he had considered resigning but decided not to.

"If I'd known before 2013 or had grounds for suspicion, that would be a resigning matter then and now. But I didn't," he said.

However, the petition by three members of the General Synod -- which comprises 483 lay members and clergy -- argues he "held a personal and moral responsibility to pursue this further... which he failed to fulfil".

"Given his role in allowing abuse to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable," it adds.

By Monday afternoon, it had more than 3,000 signatures, while a growing number of priests were speaking out against him.

Giles Fraser, the vicar of St Anne's Church in southwest London, told BBC radio on Monday it was "a terrible situation".

"I'm afraid he's really lost the confidence of his clergy," he said.

"He's lost the confidence of many of his bishops, and his position is completely untenable."

The report into Smyth, led by former social services chief Keith Makin, concluded those "at the highest level" within the Church knew from mid-2013 about the extent of his abusive crimes.

The failure to alert police "represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice" it said.

It may also have "resulted in an ongoing and avoidable safeguarding threat in the period between 2012 and his death in 2018".

The Makin probe also further criticized the Church's response to a 2017 Channel 4 expose of Smyth's abuses, calling it "poor in terms of speed, professionalism, intensity and curiosity".

The Church of England has been the target of abuse claims in the recent past but not on the same scale as the Roman Catholic Church.

A 2020 report -- part of a wider-ranging independent enquiry into child sexual abuse in various institutions -- identified nearly 400 convicted offenders associated with the Church from the 1940s until 2018.

Their convictions related to sexual abuse of children.