By Muvija M

LONDON (Reuters) – Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will finish his duties on Monday after quitting amid an abuse cover-up scandal, however his interim successor is going through scrutiny in the same case, leaving the Church of England on unsure floor.

Welby, 69, introduced his resignation in November after an unbiased inquiry discovered he had taken inadequate motion to deliver to justice one of many establishment’s worst abusers, a person who volunteered at Christian summer season camps a long time in the past. The person, John Smyth, died in 2018.

Welby, head of the Church of England and chief of the 85 million Anglicans worldwide, stated on resigning that he should take “personal and institutional responsibility” for a scarcity of motion on the “heinous abuses”.

Welby intends to finish his official duties by the Feast of Epiphany on Monday, his Lambeth Palace workplace stated in a press release in November.

The Church can be grappling with declining non secular religion in Britain and inner divisions over the way it approaches same-sex {couples} in its congregations.

A British Social Attitudes (BSA) report in 2019 stated Britons have been turning into steadily extra secular, with simply over one third of the general public figuring out as Christian. In 1983, when the BSA started measuring non secular identification, that determine was 66%.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the Church’s second most senior cleric, will take over Welby’s official capabilities till Welby’s successor is picked. That course of may take six months.

Cottrell is himself going through scrutiny following a BBC report three weeks in the past that stated he had let a priest maintain his job regardless of understanding the Church had barred him from being alone with youngsters, and that he had paid compensation to a sexual abuse sufferer.

Cottrell has apologised for not having acted sooner on the case, saying he suspended the priest, David Tudor, on the first alternative. The Church in October banned Tudor for all times from ministry.

Reuters has not been in a position to contact Tudor.

The Church’s Christmas festivities have been overshadowed by the scandals. Cottrell stated in his Christmas Day sermon that the Church should “strip off her finery and kneel in penitence and adoration”.

One in all Welby’s predecessors, George Carey, stepped down as a priest final month following allegations of mishandling Tudor’s case.

“The current situation creates a worrying vulnerability for the Church,” stated Linda Woodhead, head of the Division of Theology and Non secular Research at King’s School London. “The Church could soon find itself with no archbishop at the helm.”

“This would create significant problems, even in the safeguarding realm, let alone other aspects of Church governance.”