Often struggling

Welby has resigned.

Justin Welby spent his 11 years as Archbishop of Canterbury trying to prevent the global Anglican communion from fracturing, often struggling to please liberals or conservatives as they fought over homosexual rights and women clergy.

But in the end he was brought down by an issue from the church’s past rather than its future: the failure to investigate an abuse scandal that dated back decades…Welby said he had had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations before 2013, the year he became archbishop. But the independent Makin Report, published on Nov. 7, concluded it was unlikely he would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding Smyth’s behaviour in the 1980s.

That’s unclear. Is it unlikely that Welby, in the 1980s, had no knowledge? Or is it unlikely that Welby now had no knowledge of Smyth’s “behaviour” aka violent child abuse in the 1980s?

Educated at Britain’s most prestigious private school, Eton, Welby worked in the oil industry for more than a decade before being ordained in 1992. He was made the senior prelate of the Church of England in 2013, becoming the spiritual head of 85 million Anglicans in 165 countries.

Interesting career-life move – oil industry to priesthood. Each somewhat demonic, but in different ways.

His time at the head of the Anglican communion was turbulent as he was forced to navigate a schism that erupted as he enabled women to become bishops and allowed churches to bless same-sex couples. He said he had decided not to carry out such blessings himself, out of responsibility for the wider church, adding: “This is where you have to be a politician.”

But the move angered the conservative branch of the global communion, most notably African churches where homosexuality is taboo, and a conservative group of Anglican church leaders said last year it had no confidence in him.

Too liberal one minute, not liberal enough the next.

“Liberal” may not be the right word for opposing and exposing child abuse, but it is a conservative impulse to side with the institution rather than its victims, and to conceal the harms perpetrated by the institution on its vastly less powerful victims.

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