It’s difficult to face the fact that those who call themselves Christian can abuse, and hard to believe anyone thought silence was the right response

It has been an unprecedented 10 days for the Church of England. The Makin report into abuse by John Smyth, barrister and Church lay reader, was leaked and landed a week ahead of its scheduled date, but still more than four years behind the original timetable.

Much of the content is familiar to anyone who read Andrew Graystone’s 2021 book Bleeding for Jesus. Justin Welby had been at the same Iwerne Trust Christian camps for boys as Smyth, sometimes at the same time, and seems to have heard rumours well before 2013, when he became officially aware of the abuse. His response was to announce that he had taken advice, and would not resign as archbishop of Canterbury; then, less than a week later, he did.