The top cleric in the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, announced on Tuesday he was resigning after facing mounting pressure to quit over his handling of an abuse case.
Welby said in a statement that he was “stepping aside in the best interests of the Church of England”.
A review into the case had “exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth,” he wrote.
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.
“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”
Demands for Welby’s resignation had been growing in recent days, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying abuse victims had been “failed very, very badly.