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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has issued a sorry apology for his final speech in the House of Lords after he joked about his career following a damning report into church abuse.
Mr Welby said he would “wholeheartedly apologize for the hurt” caused by his boast after senior bishops accused him of making light of the situation following his resignation last month over the damning Makin review, which implicated him in the church’s failure to protect victims from serial abusers.
Mr Welby, whose last day as archbishop is January 6, said on Thursday that “there comes a time if you are technically running a particular institution or area of responsibility where the shame of what has gone wrong, whether someone is personally responsible or not, has to require a rolling head.
“And there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough.”
He joked by comparing his situation to that of his 14th-century predecessor, Simon Sudbury, whose severed head was used in a football match. “I don’t know who won, but it certainly wasn’t Simon of Sudbury,” he said to the laughter of fellow priests in the house.
In addition, he said his “poor diary secretary” deserved pity after seeing “weeks and months of work disappear in the breath of a resignation announcement”.
More to come