This week the Archbishop of Canterbury and Head of the Church of England, Justin Welby, resigned following a report which directly implicated him in the cover-up of the physical, and sexual abuse, of over 115 boys by barrister and Christian youth camp leader John Smyth.
Welby was not the only one who protected abusers. Already, six bishops have also been revealed to have helped cover-up the abuse.
Smyth is only the latest and most prolific in a long tradition of abusers and rapists whose crimes were shrouded in silence by the Church of England (CofE) leadership.
Alongside similar cover-ups and cases of sexual abuse in other British institutions - the BBC (Jimmy Saville) the monarchy (Prince Andrew), the Tory Party, Harrods (Al Fayed), and the Metropolitan Police (David Carrick).
This disgusting scandal once again reveals how the establishment is rotten to the core.
Cover Up
The details of the abuses are sickening. John Smyth, a distinguished barrister, was the chairman of the Iwerne Trust, an organisation which ran Christian camps for boys from the top 30 boys schools in Britain.
He'd been a morality campaigner for Mary Whitehouse and took part in her campaigns against homosexuality.
These Iwerne camps were British evangelical camps also known as Bash camps and aimed at children from public schools.
Using his position as a leader at these summer camps, Smyth physically and sexually abused at least 115 boys and young men – some as young as 13 – across England, South Africa, and Zimbabwe over a period of half a century.
Stories tell of Smyth molesting and then savagely caning victims over 800 times, after which he would supply nappies to contain the bleeding. Smyth told victims that the beatings were “an appropriate step in their Christian progression”.
As the report explains, Church of England leaders – including six bishops and the Archbishop, the most senior members of the church – knew about the scale and brutality of these abuses as early as 1982.
Yet, as the report puts it;
[they] participated in an active cover-up to prevent that report and its findings…coming to light.
As a result, these abuses continued up until John Smyth’s death.
Justin Welby himself – supposedly the highest spiritual authority in England besides the King – had attended four of the Iwene camps that Smyth led, and undeniably knew about the abuse from at least 2013, when he became the Archbishop.
A 2020 report exposed that 390 clergy members were convicted of abuse between the 1940s and 2018. A more recent report found 383 new cases relating to abuse. And given the culture of cover-up, we can be sure that this is only a fraction of the real number of cases.
For example, Peter Ball – who confessed to the abuse of 18 young boys in his position as a Bishop – was spared from prosecution in 1993 after a campaign in his defence by a member of the royal family, a Lord Justice of Appeal, Cabinet ministers, and public school headmasters.
As the 2020 report explains:
The primary concern of many senior clergy was to uphold the Church’s reputation, which was prioritised over victims and survivors.
The CofE is the state church. Founded by Henry VIII it is not a neutral institution but an organ of power. For centuries it has been one of the most important instruments in the hands of the British ruling elite – along with the monarchy and the Tory Party.
Beyond its ideological functions, the Church plays an equally important political role. 29 bishops – the ‘Lords Spiritual’ – are guaranteed seats in the House of Lords (the only other countries to do this are Iran and the Vatican), and they open every session of parliament with prayers.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the highest ranking non-royal in England: tasked with blessing each new parliament and leading all of the ceremonial religious-monarchical services.
These absurd, mediaeval traditions are a means of sanctifying Britain’s ruling institutions. They give the appearance that the state stands above society, and that the immoral order that it governs over is natural and divinely ordained.
Archbishop Welby was a paragon of Christian mercy when he was urging forgiveness for the ‘transgressions’ of Prince Andrew.
Justin Welby, himslef is the son of Winston Churchill’s private secretary, a baroness. He went to Eton and Cambridge, worked as an oil executive, and inherited £2 million pounds from his mother.
Though they preach chastity and humility, these cassocked parasites enjoy lives of opulence and excess. Spiritually and morally corrupt.
The CofE survives on a £10billion investment fund – including investment in arms and oil. These are extremely rich and powerful people, who are connected by a thousand threads to the class of rich and powerful people that run Britain.
The CofE has lost its hold over the minds of millions in Britain. According to the 2021 official census, for the first time in history, fewer than half of the population of England and Wales now describe themselves as Christian.
That this stinking British swamp produces John Smyths, Jimmy Savilles, Prince Andrews, and Al-Fayeds comes as no surprise. They are not isolated individuals, but connected by power and influence, they reveal the depravity of our society at its core. Should society be in the hands of such sick and damaged people?
