LONDON (ENGLAND)
The New York Times
October 14, 2017
By Ceylan Yeginsu
The Anglican Church has been embroiled for most of this year in a scandal involving decades-old abuses that occurred in elite Christian holiday camps for boys where Justin Welby worked in his 20s, before eventually assuming his current post as the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury.
The archbishop has said that he knew nothing of the abuse until 2013, when the police were informed about it, and he apologized in February for not having done more to investigate the claims further.
But now the grown men who were victims of the abuse as boys are coming forward to challenge the archbishop’s version of events, casting doubt on his claims of ignorance.
The archbishop, 61, was working abroad in 1982, when an internal investigation by an influential Christian charity supported allegations of sadistic practices by John Smyth, a prominent lawyer and evangelical leader who ran the camps.
The results of that investigation were never made public, and the allegations were dismissed when they were first reported to the British police in 2013 because Mr. Smyth had moved to Africa and was no longer in the country’s jurisdiction. It was not until Channel 4 news disclosed the accusations in a report earlier this year that a criminal investigation was started.
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