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The Downfall of an Archbishop and the Rise of a Soldier
The Telegraph is full of stories today about yesterday’s resignation of the Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the latest in a long line of senior clergy of one or another Christian denomination who have been brought to account for covering up horrific crimes committed by churchmen, in this case, the jaw-dropping decades of abuse by the Church of England’s most prolific abuser, John Smyth, a Church of England camp counselor and Queen’s Counselor (a highfalutin’ lawyer) in the 1970s and 1980s.
I know that sounds like a very long time ago (because it is), and if the accusations had only just come out, I’d wonder too. But they were first raised in a 1982 report by the Iwerne Trust, which ran the camps and which reported that Smyth identified and groomed particular boys and young men and then subjected them to brutal sadomasochistic beatings, each consisting of hundreds, sometimes thousands of lashes. The details are so grotesque that I regret reading some of the reports, because they can’t be unseen. I’ll just say that Smyth had built a soundproofed shed at the bottom of his garden where he carried out his “Christian corrections.”
The Church did nothing in response to the 1982 Iwerne Trust report. Reports of the abuse continued to circulate, and the Church continued to do nothing.
At first, Justin Welby claimed to have only found out about all this in 2013. (That’s eleven years ago, I think, even though math was never my strong suit. It’s also the year that Justin Welby became the Archbishop of Canterbury.) But still, in a scenario similar to the years-long Post Office Scandal, which only really captured the attention of Westminster and Whitehall after an ITV special ran for four nights this past January, things remained very much sub rosa until 2017, when Channel 4 ran a documentary revealing the appalling truth in which several of the victims identified themselves and spoke out.
Hampshire Constabulary began an investigation, but Smyth had decamped to South Africa, where he died in 2018, without ever facing justice.
Welby first insisted that he knew nothing of the abuse until it was brought to his attention in 2013, although Smyth was a friend, and although Smyth ran the Iwerne Trust from 1974 until 1981. The Archbishop claimed he’d been in Paris in 1978, around the time the abuse began, and therefore, he couldn’t have been aware of it.
Then it turned out he’d actually spent the summer at one of the camps while the abuse was being carried out. From the Telegraph:
Despite the Archbishop’s claims he moved to Paris in 1978 and had had “no contact” with the Iwerne Trust until his return to Britain in 1983, he later told Channel 4 News he had returned to the summer camp in 1979 and had not been in Paris as he originally claimed.
Apparently, Welby worked as a “dormitory officer” at the camp. Also from the Telegraph:
Despite having previously insisted he was not aware of the abuse, the Archbishop later admitted he was warned about the Church of England’s most prolific child abuser 40 years ago.
So Welby’s gone. King Charles hardest hit.
As it sits right now, there are 30 Church officials still alive and in influential positions facing the sack due to their involvement in covering up this horrific mess. One of them sits in what I believe another Christian denomination would call the secretive “conclave” charged with selecting the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
As I slogged through these several reports with an occasional foray into some light reading to catch up on Allison Pearson’s ordeal with the police on Remembrance Sunday**, I was struck again and again by the several writers’ depiction of Welby as an able administrator, a globe trotter who was fond of getting off planes in exotic locations and being greeted by hundreds of the adoring faithful singing his praises and showering him with gifts. And of the huge and lumbering bureaucracy he ran. Of his political astuteness. Of how an organization that couldn’t find the money to fix the roofs of its twelfth-century parish churches, or to populate villages with actual vicars who aren’t on some sort of circuit where they race from church to church of a Sunday, but who actually live among their parishioners, could suddenly cough up £100 million to help “redress the wrongs of historic slavery.” And by the comment in one article that nothing Justin Welby did seemed devoted to the spiritual.
Good grief. Even the monarch manages to distribute money to the poor on Maundy Thursday, although without actually washing the feet of beggars anymore. But it doesn’t sound as if Justin Welby would be caught dead among the homeless or the leprous in a poor parish, humbly doing the Lord’s work among the truly needy. But if I were the next Archbishop of Canterbury, that’s exactly where I’d send him. But before that, I’d have found the next Archbishop of Canterbury in just such a place. A parish priest.
(My random access memory is darting off to John Profumo, the disgraced politician who resigned from Harold Macmillan’s conservative government in 1963 after a sex scandal of considerable proportions, who left public life altogether and spent the rest of his own life working as a volunteer at Toynbee Hall. He was awarded the CBE in 1975, and in 1995 he sat next to the Queen at Margaret Thatcher’s 70th birthday party. Not sure Justin Welby’s got that sort of humility and decency in him.)
So, I know you’re dying to know what all this has to do with the “Rise of a Soldier” part of this post’s title.
Well. I checked my news feed at some point and saw that Donald Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense. This was startling news. I have seen Pete on TV, and I’ve read one of his books, and I think he’s smart and sincere and he’s done a lot for veterans. But it was a bit jarring.
And then I thought about it some more. And I thought about everything I’d just read about Justin Welby and his love of the trappings of his office. And I thought about “The Generals.” And about current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (he’s a General), who disappeared for days, when not even the President knew where he was (in the hospital for prostate surgery). And about the “Stand Down Day” initiative (from the Generals and similar, in other service branches) ordering troops to take the time to study–through indoctrination and because there is one–the “problem” of extremism and racism in the military. And about Mark Milley (he’s a General) taking it upon himself to call his opposite number in China to assure him that–should Trump be about to unleash the bomb, he–Milley–would be sure to give the Chinese a heads up. And about Jim Mattis (another General. And a previous Secretary of Defense) calling Trump an “idiot.” Or maybe that was John Kelly (yet another General). Either way, that’s what Bob Woodward reported, so it must be true.
And I thought, “If I can imagine a humble parish priest as the best choice for Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps I can imagine that the best choice for the Secretary of Defense is an actual soldier.”
I don’t know how he’ll do in the hearings. He’s got some personal baggage which may or may not matter, but anyway, I wish him well.
**They showed up at her front door to let her know that she was being charged with a “Non-Criminal-Hate-Incident” for a Tweet she sent a year ago. When she asked what the Tweet said, they weren’t allowed to tell her. When she asked who the accuser was, they said, “She’s not the accuser, she’s the victim.” Big mistake, London cops. Huge: Musk leads growing backlash against police for investigating Allison Pearson. My God. The man is everywhere.
Published in General
I’m going to take some convincing about Matt Gaetz, though.
I was surprised by the Hegseth nomination, but a friend who read Hegseth’s The War on Warriors says that if Hegseth focuses on doing something about the infestation of Woke in the senior ranks, the recruitment crisis will be resolved in short order.
Maybe Gaetz is Trump trolling everybody again. Probably not, though. That’s the one pick I don’t like.
King Charles could probably get better spiritual advice elsewhere.
Boy howdy.
How did you read all that stuff? How did you make it through? Martin Luther’s actions are making a lot more sense, now tho I think. The reporting is hideous, but utterly believable. The CoE is unrecognizable to one who fled the ECUSA for the shelter of Anglican worship years ago.
I sincerely hope generals and some colonels will be fired summarily. Actually – anyone who has had anything at all to do with pronouns or promoting or encouraging or permitting weirdsex. It will take those who are comfortable questioning Authority to do it. I know for sure all the bunch currently in charge would leave our Marine in a dark ditch without a second thought. Hang ‘em up.
I don’t think I can be convinced on Gaetz
I like the Pete Hegseth nomination. Matt Gaetz? Nope.
I think Matt Gaetz is more of a battering ram against DoJ corruption. The DoJ needs a firm hand & a person who can’t easier be rolled by the bureaucrats.
If there is a better person with more legal experience, I would support them
I hope Gaetz had at least two definite duties from Trump. One, open up the files. Have complete transparency and let the honest citizen reporters bring truth to the people. Two, fire everyone who can be fired, reassign every Washington lawyer to flyover country if they can’t be fired and Start hiring from the flyover state university law schools (very carefully). Absolutely no Ivy League, or Ivy League adjacent hires.
A good place for John Eastman would be nice too.
As far as I’m aware, Gaetz graduated law school in 2007, and first ran for, and won, elected office in 2010. Whatever he did in the intervening three years, doesn’t constitute a whole lot of legal experience, as compared to many other potential candidates. (It’s possible that RFK Sr. had less such experience when his brother nominated him as attorney general in 1960, but I’m not sure.) Whatever the case, Gaetz has considerable other baggage which will make his confirmation hearings must-watch TV.
His alleged affinity for cocaine might increase his productivity. I’m not sure he’s the best choice, but he certainly would create fireworks and news headlines.
On a serious note regarding the above mentioned abuses of the Anglican Church… this is exactly the sort of thing that drives people away from organized established religions. However, it’s not specifically a religious problem but rather an authority structure problem. Public schools for example have a similar problem. Though with the Church the bitter hypocrisy is undeniable. In the Gospels it’s pretty clear that Jesus had some critiques of those in religious power. Those concerns still are just as relevant today.
On a theological note its partly why of the various interpretations having a more direct approach with democratic elements made the most sense to me.
From the fifties through the eighties, when companies had to restructure themselves, the boards of directors would hire some very unpleasant people whose jobs were to fire everyone and replace them. After the dust settled a year or two later, the henchmen would be fired and replaced with more civilized CEOs or other C-suite executives.
I do not like Mr. Gaetz, but I don’t think anyone does. Perhaps that’s the whole point of Trump’s choice.
I may be wrong, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for this surprising appointment.
Some of the influential 18th century thinkers believed there should be a national church, because it would ensure the calcification and death of organized religion.
Well, it was a time when the CoE was often viewed as stodgy and uninspiring, when contrasted with the evangelical energy of the Methodist movement and the supposed intellectual enlightenment of the Deists. Church attendance has been declining for decades, but what’s notable in the 21st century is that attempts to finish it off seem to be coming from the inside. Welby did nothing to reverse the decline, which–of course–plummeted to zero during Covid lockdowns. Church attendance today is only about eighty percent of what it was before 2020.
Welby’s resignation was breaking news on the BBC News Hour the other morning. They interviewed a reporter for a religious magazine in Britain about it. I was amazed to hear there was a publication on religion in Britain? I mean how many readers can there be? The proverbial phone booth? I feel as though the CoE has done all it could to stamp out any remaining religion in Britain. I assume the next A of C will be a priestess. Sigh. Side note: I am the only person of a certain age who thinks of Marcus Welby, MD when I see/hear about the former A of C?
I can’t imagine there’s all that much interest in a magazine about religion, at least if if that religion is Christianity. And yes, the CoE has had its hand at its throat for decades, and I’ve already speculated to my sister that there’ll be great pressure to select a woman as the next AoC (not the NY Representative, the Anglican Primate).
I’ve had to do some light mental gymnastics to separate the Archbishop of Canterbury from the Prime Minister of Canada namewise, a couple of times. But I remember Marcus Welby MD fondly.