In November, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced his resignation as leader of the Church of England, after an independent review into John Smith’s crimes revealed his continued failure to take the necessary steps to bring the child abuser to justice. He will officially step down in early January.

McCain’s independent review found that Smith, a lawyer involved in Christian ministry, abused up to 130 boys and young men at Christian summer camps in Africa and England over four decades. Smith, who the review found subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, died in 2018 at the age of 75, without facing full accountability.

The investigation concluded that the abuse suffered by John Smith was “profuse and abhorrent”. “Words cannot adequately describe the horror of what happened.”

The testimonies of the victims who participated in the investigation are heartbreaking. Many say they waited more than four decades to disclose abuses because they feared they would be blamed or not believed.

The lawyer’s horrific abuse of boys participating in Christian camps was first identified in the 1980s, but the Church of England failed to take appropriate action and in effect allowed his abuse to continue, both in England and Africa, the review found.

Archbishop Welby volunteered at some of the holiday camps where Smith abused boys in the 1970s, but denied having any knowledge of concerns about the lawyer at the time. McCain’s review concluded that this was “unlikely.” Welby may not have known the full extent of the abuse, the authors acknowledge, but he knew it was happening.

Archbishop Welby says he was first informed of Smith’s crimes in 2013, but acknowledges he somehow failed to make a formal report to police. The review found that if Welby had reported the abuse to authorities at the time, “on the balance of probabilities”, Smith would have been brought to justice “much earlier”. This would have spared Smith’s victims about 10 years of additional torment, given them more time to hold him accountable for his crimes before his death, and shown that the church and its leaders actually care about victims of clergy abuse.

Welby said in his resignation statement that he “must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and shocking period between 2013 and 2024.”

However, Welby’s resignation was not easy, as he had to be forced from office under enormous pressure. Just as he failed to take action to bring Smith to justice, Welby also failed to take responsibility for his role in protecting his attacker from accountability.

After the McCain report was published, Welby initially told the media that he did not plan to resign. It was only after some senior clergy, such as Bishop Helen Anne Hartley of Newcastle, called for him to step down, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to offer his support, that public criticism began to pile up on social media for his admission of responsibility. He reluctantly agreed to step down.

Sadly, Welby is not the only senior figure in the Church of England to be criticized for its inadequate response to child abuse.

Earlier this month, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the second most senior bishop in the Church of England, was forced to issue an apology after increasing scrutiny over his handling of another abuse case linked to the Church of England in 2019. Cottrell is accused of allowing a priest to remain in his position, Despite knowing that he was prohibited from being alone with children and paying compensation to the victim of sexual assault.

As the church’s second-most senior bishop, Cottrell will temporarily take over as Archbishop of Canterbury in January while a permanent replacement for Welby is chosen.

So far, Cottrell has rejected growing calls for his resignation, claiming that the continued employment of the abusive priest, which according to reports has caused victims to suffer greatly, was not his fault and he should not lose his job over it. “I am deeply sorry that we could not take action earlier, but this is the situation I inherited,” he said.

No one, not even its most senior leaders, seems to feel real responsibility for the Church of England’s apparent inability to protect children, acknowledge abuse when it happens, remove abusers from office, and deliver justice for victims of all ages without being pressured. By the public.

There is no doubt that Welby’s hesitant and late resignation is welcome, and it must be followed by another resignation. But the growing crisis in the Church clearly shows that what is required today is not individual resignation, but rather real institutional responsibility and purposeful work.

The Church urgently needs to implement a serious program of training on boundary violations and sexual exploitation in all seminaries and theological training colleges, and to establish appropriate disciplinary procedures in all areas to address the sexual, physical and emotional exploitation of both adults and children.

A system must be put in place to ensure the immediate removal of any violator from the ministry. Independent investigation into child sexual abuse a report (IICSA), published in 2022, found that clergy abuse in the UK is endemic, and that senior members of the church often protect perpetrators by transferring them to another diocese if there are rumors – or even where reported abuse has previously occurred. Victim(s). Of course, sending the alleged abuser into “exile” would do little to keep the church scandal-free for the time being. Victims cannot find justice or a chance to heal. Without treatment and without punishment, the abuser simply continues the abuse in his new place. As was the case with Smith, this sad pattern repeats itself until someone, often a victim, makes the crime public. Then the passing of the buck begins. Church leaders start talking about “inherited attitudes” and plead ignorance.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

It is time for the church to accept its responsibilities, stop protecting abusers, and focus on supporting victims.

It must also be remembered that this is by no means a problem unique to the Church of England. Scandals of this kind appear periodically in churches all over the world, from the United Kingdom and Ireland to the United States and Australia.

In Spain, it is estimated that more than 200,000 children have been abused by Catholic clergy since 1940. An independent investigation published its report on the scandal in 2023, and deemed the church’s response to rampant abuse “inadequate.” Under intense political pressure, the Catholic Church began conducting complaints about clergy abuse in 2020. This led to nearly 1,000 victims coming forward. But it is widely known that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

In France a Inquiry 2021 A study into religious abuse found that at least 216,000 children had been sexually abused in the French Catholic Church since 1950, by at least 3,000 abusers. The report’s authors accused the church of showing “callous indifference” toward the victims. They said these abuses occurred in Catholic schools, churches and holiday camps across France, and that the vast majority of victims were between 10 and 13 years old. Many have tried to report abuse to church leaders and have not been believed.

Clergy abuse is systemic and cannot be written off as isolated cases committed by atypical “rogue” perpetrators.

There is abundant evidence that many, many perpetrators continue to operate in various churches around the world, with little or no scrutiny by religious authorities or, indeed, law enforcement. The lack of supervision means they can continue their abuse in plain sight, feeling invincible.

To this day, clergy abuse appears to be exposed, and abusers are punished, primarily because of the courage and strength of the victims.

20 years ago, the Center for Women’s Justice, a charity I co-founded, received its highest honor, the Emma Humphreys Memorial AwardTo Dr. Margaret Kennedy, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and a pioneering activist in her field. Founded Maxas (Survivors of Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse), a national organization that supports women and men who have been sexually abused by clergy or ministers, when they were children or adults. MACSAS is still going strong today, doing important work to support survivors and bring abusers to justice.

However, Margaret Kennedy, and all the other brave survivors who have spoken out over the past decades to expose the horror of clerical abuse, should not have to campaign for justice. It should be easily managed. The Church, along with every other religious institution, must make it a top priority to purge its ranks of abusers, exploiters, and child rapists.

The time for shifting responsibility, excuses, and late and hesitant resignations on the part of a few leaders is over.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.