Anglican archbishop Thabo Makgoba has announced an inquiry into whether the Anglican Church in Cape Town met its obligation to keep its members safe from abuse.
He confirmed the move during a sermon on Sunday in response to media reports in Britain revealing a former UK lawyer, John Smyth, had perpetrated serious abuses in Britain and Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s.
Smyth attended a Cape Town Anglican Church for two periods, the first for a year or two in the early 2000s and again in the months before his death in 2018.
Makgoba said no evidence had been reported to the church's leaders that Smyth had committed abuses in Cape Town. “But the diocese [of Cape Town] and I are accountable to you, our church members, and to society to ensure all our churches are safe spaces in which to worship and minister,” he said.
“Consequently, I am consulting the Safe and Inclusive Church Commission, which pursues abuse cases vigorously, as well as our chancellors and registrars, who give us legal advice, to work out the terms of reference of a review of whether the diocese, and I personally, met our obligation to keep you safe, and what we could have done better.”
Makgoba said abuse in the church led to “society's loss of trust in our integrity when we claim to work for the flourishing of all human beings. We cannot credibly challenge our government without ourselves living up to the standards of morality we expect from them.”
The bishop of an English diocese wrote to the diocese of Cape Town in 2013, warning that Smyth was accused of abuse in Britain and Zimbabwe. Inquiries at the time show that Smyth had left the Cape Town parish he had attended a year earlier, and no reports of abuse or grooming had been made. He was allowed back to worship in the parish in the months before he died on condition he did not get involved in any ministry or contact any young person.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, resigned last week “in sorrow” over the scandal, acknowledging he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into the allegations of abuse at Christian summer camps decades ago.
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