AP Explains: Church of England head Justin Welby resigns

(12 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 12 November 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) David Crary, The Associated Press:
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“One of the world’s most prominent religious leaders, Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has resigned. He’s head of the Church of England and also the spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion. He was implicated last week in an investigation into physical and sexual abuse of boys and young men at camps run by the Church of England. According to the report, a lawyer named John Smith, over 50 years, had abused more than 100 boys at camps in Britain and in Africa. We’re going to learn more soon, we hope, about the succession process, but for now, Welby is headed on the way out of one of the world’s most far flung religious denominations.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE – Canterbury, United Kingdom – 15 January 2016
2. Still of The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addressing the media

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE – London – 13 February 2017
3. Still of Welby as he listens to debate at the General Synod

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE – Jerusalem – 3 May 2017
4. Still of Welby paying his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial

STORYLINE:
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigned Tuesday after an investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.

Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday, when the archbishop’s refusal to accept responsibility for his failure to report the abuse in England and in Africa in 2013 kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church.

Welby’s resignation will send ripples around the world. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, which has more than 85 million members in 165 countries, including the Episcopal Church in the United States. While each national church has its own leaders, the Archbishop of Canterbury is considered first among equals.

Welby, a former oil executive who left the industry in 1989 to study for the priesthood, was a controversial figure even before the scandal. A skilled mediator who has worked to resolve conflicts in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, he struggled to unite the Anglican Communion, which has been riven by sharply divergent views on issues such as gay rights and the place of women in the church.

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