The Onus of Forgiveness

Written by Lucy Waters.

What is forgiveness? Defined by the Cambridge dictionary as ‘to stop blaming or being angry with someone for something that person has done or not punish them for something,’ viewed by philosophers as a process of giving up certain negative emotions towards a wrongdoer and thought of in the mainstream consciousness as a virtuous act. Forgiveness is a key pillar of the Christian faith, with St Francis of Assisi, an authority in the Church, teaching that ‘it is by forgiving that one is forgiven,’ and therefore how one is given passage into eternal life with a forgiving God. 

At the end of last month, a BBC journalist and host of the Newscast podcast, Laura Kuenssberg, interviewed a remorseful Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury from 2013 until this year, following his resignation in January. An investigation conducted in 1982 was made public in 2016, exposing the serial abuse by John Smyth of around 100 young men and boys. Smyth was a barrister who ran Christian summer camps in Britain and Zimbabwe in the 1970s and 1980s, he died in 2018, aged 75. In the interview, Kuenssberg addressed an independent report that was made in 2024 that found that Welby had not done enough to support, help or prevent the abuse of young people in the Church. Welby admitted he ‘should have pushed harder,’ explaining that he was ‘overwhelmed,’ but this was a ‘reason, it's not an excuse.’ The interview made waves in the press, however because of Welby’s claim that “if he was alive and I saw him” and if he had expressed remorse, he would forgive John Smyth. 

But is Justin Welby in any position to be forgiving Smyth? Should he be instead seeking forgiveness from those he failed to protect through his inaction? Philosopher Jeffrie Murphy talks about ‘standing’ in forgiveness. That is, only those who have been directly wronged have the standing to forgive a wrongdoer; only the victims can forgive. As such, Welby does not have the standing to forgive Smyth, which, to his credit, is something that Welby acknowledges, saying ‘whether I forgive is, to a large extent, irrelevant,’ placing, correctly it seems to me, the onus of forgiveness on the victims of Smyth’s abuse. Yet, Welby’s faith teaches forgiveness as an ultimate good. God is a forgiver, and as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Welby must give an example of Christian doctrine in action. Due to the Church’s following of teachings on forgiveness, such as Francis of Assisi’s prayer, as mentioned previously, Welby’s willingness to forgive Smyth should not be wholly surprising. I, however, am still finding myself questioning whether this Christian forgiveness really extends to the cover-up which Welby and the Anglican Church perpetrated against the victims of Smyth’s violence.

So, do Smyth’s victims forgive their abuser? According to one victim, known as Graham, this, like Welby’s forgiveness of Smyth, is somewhat irrelevant. Graham told Laura Kuenssberg on Newscast that the abuse he suffered ‘pales into insignificance’ compared to being ignored and neglected by Welby’s administration. The independent report that was released in 2016 stated that Welby ‘may not have known of the extreme seriousness of the abuse, but it is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.’, and that he ‘could and should’ have reported the abuser to the police in 2013. It is left as an open question as to why more was not done to protect the children that were exposed to Smyth. The Church has a duty of care for the whole Anglican community, a duty which was neglected. Welby’s ‘overwhelm’ at the number of cases he found himself dealing with as Archbishop should have been a sign to him that there was a systematic problem within the institution, and yet he did nothing. In fact, he did more than nothing, he made a valedictory speech after his resignation in which he appeared to be joking about the abuse, saying that a head must roll and his was the only ‘head that rolls well enough.’ Welby’s readiness to forgive Smyth is telling. It tells us that he is blind to the fact that he should be asking for forgiveness from those members of his church whom he let down, rather than presuming to forgive an abuser. 

Even today, despite changes in the Church of England’s policies, such as a move towards having more female members of the clergy and allowing same sex couples to have blessings, abuse remains a fundamental problem. An independent ex-safeguarding officer for the Church told Kuenssberg that safeguarding measures in the Church don’t work, have not changed and are still letting down victims of abuse. Just a couple of months ago, in February, the governing body of the Church voted against the establishment of an independent safeguarding model, specifically designed to deal with cases such as these. The neglectful treatment of Smyth’s victims and an inability to properly safeguard children and young people is the product of a culture within the Church which does not care sufficiently about the protection of its community, as well as one which preaches forgiveness at all costs. 

John Kekes argues that forgiveness is morally unnecessary: when blaming wrongdoers is reasonable, there is no reason to forgive them, and when blaming them is unreasonable, there is nothing to forgive. In this case, I would argue that blaming Welby for his failure to report Smyth to the police and to give survivors the justice they so deserve is reasonable. As is blaming the culture of an establishment which allows abuse to occur in what should be a safe environment of faith and then teaches its community to forgive abusers. Therefore, there is no need to forgive either Welby or the Church of England for the treatment of the survivors of John Smyth. However, it is not for me, or any outsider, to say if forgiveness can be given; the onus of forgiveness lies solely with the survivors.