A senior bishop has called for Justin Welby to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury. damn report He turned into a lawyer who was thought to be most prolific serial abuser be associated with church.

Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley described Mr Welby’s position as “untenable” and claimed the church was in danger of “completely losing its credibility”.

“I think people rightly ask: ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ “And I think the answer right now is ‘no,'” he said. BBC.

Bishop Hartley, one of 21 bishops who serve as Lord Spiritual in the House of Lords, added that Mr Welby’s resignation would mean “a very clear indication that a line has been drawn and we need to move towards independence on safeguarding”.

Mr Welby has so far refused to resign and told Channel 4 he had thought about the matter for a long time and sought advice from senior colleagues and eventually concluded it was more appropriate for him to retain his position.

The petition, prepared by some members of the General Synod, the church’s parliament, collected more than 1,500 signatures. Welcome Christian barrister John Smyth QC resigned after the church failed to warn authorities about his “disgusting” abuse of children and young men.

The Makin review into the abuse, published last week, concluded Welby “had at least some knowledge of concerns” about Smyth in the early 1980s and showed a “lack of curiosity” about the allegations, which emerged in 2013.

The archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013 but acknowledged that the review found he “personally could not be confident” the incident was “energetically investigated” after it was more widely disclosed that year.

The review said Smyth died in Cape Town in 2018, aged 75, while under investigation by Hampshire Police and was therefore “never brought to justice for the abuse”.

Involving up to 130 boys and young men in three different countries, the UK and Africa, over five decades, Smyth is said to have permanently marked the lives of his victims by subjecting them to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual assaults.

Mr Welby knew Smyth from attending Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence he “maintained significant contact” with the barrister in later years.

The court said that although Mr Welby knew him and “had reason to be somewhat concerned about him”, this was not the same as suspecting him of serious misconduct and concluded that it was “not possible to establish” whether Mr Welby knew the seriousness of the situation. Abuses in England before 2013.

The report said Smyth “could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK and the authorities (church authorities and potentially the police) in South Africa by the diocesan bishop and church officials, including Justin Welby, in 2013.”

The statement said “on the balance of probabilities if this had been done” Smyth could have been brought to justice “at a much earlier point” than the Hampshire Police investigation in early 2017.

The petition states: “We believe that his continuation as Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable, given his role in allowing the abuse to continue.

“We must see change for the good of the survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable and for the good of the Church, and we share this determination with our traditions.

“If the process of change and healing is to begin now, we regretfully see no alternative other than his immediate resignation.”

Giles Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, west London, described it as a “terrible situation”.

He told BBC Radio 4 Today program: “There’s a petition signed right now by a lot of people, and it’s coming from all over the church.

“I’m afraid he has really lost the confidence of his clergy, he has lost the confidence of many of his bishops, and his position is completely untenable.”

But the Church of England’s chief patron bishop, Dr Joanne Grenfell, rejected calls for Mr Welby’s resignation.

He welcomed her apology and praised her commitment to the church in a speech over the weekend.

“As I said, I really appreciate the Archbishop’s wholehearted apology for the things he could and should have done differently in 2013,” he said.

“I also recognize his commitment to really trying to change conservation during his time as Archbishop.

“I think there’s still a lot to be done, but I think it builds on some of the changes we’ve seen in the last 10 years.”