"Sanctified Silence: The Church of England’s Astonishing Expertise in Denial"

What’s the Church of England’s answer to facing a catastrophic scandal? Simple: bury it beneath a mountain of pious verbiage, stare soulfully into the middle distance, and wait for it to blow over. That appears to be the playbook of Archbishop Justin Welby, a man currently occupying the high altar of moral myopia. The Church of England has found itself yet again embroiled in a scandal of unspeakable proportions — not that you’d know it from their astonishingly tepid response.

The latest revelations, courtesy of the Makin Report, paint a picture of Welby as an Archbishop who treats safeguarding as an optional extra, a sort of ecclesiastical garnish rather than the main course. Rather than confront the moral quagmire before him, Welby has opted for an audaciously self-preserving course: entrenchment, doubling down, and the quiet assumption that if he lingers long enough, the storm will pass, and he’ll emerge a spiritual survivor. But it’s hard to reconcile his softly spoken “profound regret” with a decade of turning a blind eye to Smyth’s atrocities — atrocities he had reason to be suspicious of, even back in 2013.

Silence Is Sacred, But Only When Convenient

What makes this case particularly galling is the Church’s long and storied history of shielding itself in sanctified silence. For an institution founded on lofty ideals of truth and righteousness, the Church of England seems to consider transparency a vaguely heretical concept. When credible allegations of abuse surface, the Church’s impulse is not to uncover the rot but to cover it up. Welby’s 2013 brush with knowledge of Smyth’s abuses should have set off an investigation of biblical proportions. Instead, it appears to have set off a hushed meeting, perhaps a concerned sigh, and then silence. After all, who wants to risk a scandal over something as trivial as the safeguarding of children?

But let’s not pretend this silence is accidental. The Church of England has practically institutionalized discretion when it comes to its sins. Welby’s reluctance to resign isn’t about “doing the right thing” — it’s about preserving the institutional sheen, as though the Church’s veneer of righteousness can cover its sins if it’s just buffed regularly enough.

An Archbishop’s Entitlement: Sin by Omission

Welby’s refusal to leave his post suggests not only a staggering level of entitlement but also a tragic misunderstanding of what leadership in a church actually entails. Here is a man who seems to believe that God himself has given him a pass, a mandate to reign over the Church no matter the carnage left in his wake. His actions (or lack thereof) reveal a man who seems to believe he is above the fallout of ordinary mortals — that his divine calling somehow shields him from the consequences of moral failure.

What’s even more shocking is Welby’s thinly veiled sense of invincibility. Rather than stepping down or facing up to his own profound failures, he’s decided to “carry on,” as if being deeply sorry for his omissions absolves him of responsibility. It’s as if he thinks “sorry” is a sacrament unto itself, capable of washing away the sins of those who wield the Church’s power with shocking neglect.

Indeed, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Welby, rather than protecting his flock, is far more interested in protecting himself. He carries on like a man who knows that resigning would be a deeply inconvenient interruption to his ecclesiastical career. And so he persists, his resignation conspicuously absent from the table, while the rest of the Church grapples with the kind of damage that a single act of accountability might actually begin to heal.

A Legacy of Silence and Sin

The irony is palpable: here we have an institution supposedly built on confession, repentance, and moral integrity that cannot bring itself to confess, repent, or hold itself accountable. One might ask what exactly Welby thinks he’s preserving by clinging to his post. Whatever pastoral wisdom he believes he offers the Church has been eclipsed by the sheer weight of his negligence. It’s not that he’s merely failed to do his job — he’s failed to embody the very principles he’s supposed to stand for. And instead of recognising this, he stays put, presumably under the illusion that his very presence is somehow indispensable.

This isn’t just a lapse in judgment; it’s a wilful abdication of responsibility. Welby’s entitlement runs so deep that he’s willing to drag the institution down with him rather than step aside for the sake of his victims. He’s not an archbishop; he’s a figurehead desperately clinging to his vestments while the Church around him collapses under the weight of his failures.

The Hollow Cathedral of Church Accountability

Welby’s behaviour exemplifies a much larger problem within the Church of England: an addiction to authority without accountability. While the Church seems to delight in moral pronouncements on everything from marriage to immigration, it somehow struggles to apply those same moral standards to itself. The Church is quick to preach the sanctity of duty but is alarmingly slow to uphold it when its own reputation is on the line.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the Church views its power as inherently untouchable, that the mere act of questioning an Archbishop’s moral failings is tantamount to heresy. This is a Church whose commitment to safeguarding appears conditional, applied vigorously only when the public is watching. Behind closed doors, however, it’s an entirely different matter — one in which silence reigns supreme, and abuse victims are but unfortunate casualties in the noble pursuit of institutional self-preservation.

When “Sorry” Isn’t Good Enough

Perhaps the most nauseating part of all this is Welby’s public display of “profound regret” — a phrase so hollow it might echo around Canterbury Cathedral for centuries. His apologies are delivered with the gravity of a man ordering tea at a vicarage; sincere enough in tone but lacking any real intention to act. He’s sorry, of course, deeply so, but not sorry enough to let it interrupt his career.

Let’s be clear: Welby’s insistence on remaining Archbishop isn’t an act of humility; it’s an act of entitlement masquerading as devotion. It’s a declaration that he’s more essential to the Church’s mission than the healing of his victims. It’s a testament to his belief that, in the end, the Church exists to serve him, not the other way around.

A Church Built on Convenience, Not Conviction

And so the Church of England lumbers on, weighed down by a leader more concerned with preserving his title than his integrity. The irony is bitter: here is an institution built on the belief in the sanctity of sacrifice, whose leader won’t make the smallest sacrifice of all — his job — to protect the sanctity of his flock. For all the sermons on humility and redemption, for all the prayers of contrition and reconciliation, the Church of England remains unable to live up to the very values it espouses.

The longer Welby remains in office, the clearer it becomes that the Church has traded conviction for convenience, honesty for hypocrisy, and responsibility for entitlement. And as he clings to his position, unwilling to relinquish his power even in the face of catastrophic failure, Welby is doing far more than damaging his own legacy; he’s ensuring that the Church of England’s moral authority becomes little more than a historical footnote, buried beneath a mountain of apologies that mean nothing and actions that speak volumes.