The former Archbishop of Canterbury said he has turned to therapy to live with the ‘failure’ of the Church’s sex abuse scandal.
Justin Welby, 70, admitted that he has been consulting therapists for ‘a considerable period of time’ following his resignation from the role in November 2024 days after the publication of a independent report into a prolific child abuser.
Welby had served for over a decade after his appointment in 2013, but resigned after a report into John Smyth, the child sex abuser linked to the Church of England.
The report found that senior leaders within the Church, including Mr Welby, were guilty of a ‘conspiracy of silence’ and, despite knowing of Smyth’s abuse, had failed to report it to the police.
Speaking on TV personality Gyles Brandreth‘s podcast Rosebud, Mr Welby said: ‘I’ve been seeing a psychotherapist for a considerable period of time. And a psychiatrist. Very helpful.
‘It’s not about saying, ‘oh, it didn’t matter,’ or anything like that, quite the reverse – how does one live with such a failure?’
The Telegraph reported that in response to Welby’s comments, Andrew Graystone, an advocate for survivors of church-related abuse, said: ‘I hope that Justin Welby’s therapists will help him to reflect on the experience of victims of abuse, and what it is about the theology and culture of the church that facilitates abuse and makes the church so resistant to transparency and repair.’
Justin Welby said he is seeing therapists to cope with the ‘failure’ of the child sex abuse scandal
Welby served as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 2013 to 2025
Mr Welby has previously spoken about his mental health struggles, revealing in 2019 that he was taking medication for depression.
But during the interview, Mr Welby also appeared to reject that he had done what Keith Makin, the author of the independent review into Smyth and the church, accused him of doing.
Mr Welby said he was ‘perceived not to have given enough priority to a group of victims’ which was ‘absolutely correct’.
He added: ‘The initial perception was that we’d not reported it to the police – in fact, it had been reported to the police.’
One of John Smyth’s victims, known as ‘Graham’, told the Telegraph: ‘The former Archbishop says he has turned to therapy after his ‘safeguarding failure’ but then spends the rest of the interview trying to project that he did nothing wrong, need not have resigned, and was subsequently exonerated.
‘Will Justin Welby accept that John Smyth, his friend, was not found, stopped or brought to justice. Is that not a failure?’
John Smyth subjected more than 100 boys and young men to ‘traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks’ over the course of five decades and died without being brought to justice.
Last year, Welby admitted he had got it wrong when he failed to act on allegations that were presented to him – but claimed he was simply overwhelmed by the scale of the abuse that Smyth was later found to have perpetuated.
Welby had served for over a decade after his appointment in 2013, but resigned after a shocking report into John Smyth, the child sex abuser linked to the Church of England
He was heavily criticised for his seemingly blasé perspective on the scandal, using his House of Lords resignation speech to crack jokes and appearing at a British Museum gala a day after announcing his intention to quit.
The ex-archbishop knew Smyth from his time at Iwerne Trust holiday camps in Dorset – where further abuse is alleged to have been committed by the barrister – but denied that played any part in his decision not to flag allegations to the authorities.
‘Yes I knew Smyth but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks,’ he added.
‘It was overwhelming, one was trying to prioritise – but I think it’s easy to sound defensive over this.
‘The reality is I got it wrong. As archbishop, there are no excuses.’
But one of Smyth’s victims, who reported his abuse in 2013, told the broadcaster: ‘No one should be too busy to deal with a safeguarding disclosure.’