This week, Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury after a damning report into serial abuser John Smyth found that Welby should have reported Smyth’s abuse in 2013. Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Newcastle, is so far the only bishop who called for Welby’s resignation. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Hartley why she is a lone voice. Hartley said she was motivated to speak out because she was ‘horrified’ by the contents of the report, but also because of the letter she received from both archbishops prior to the report’s release, which ‘spoke deeply to the culture of power and control in the Church’. Hartley said she thought some of her peers were silent because they thought they might become the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and others were fearful of being ‘reprimanded’.
