Confession or Admission?

Confession or Admission?

Date of publication on LinkedIn: 2nd April 2025

In November 2024, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby announced he was stepping down from his role following an independent report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England.

The review found that Justin Welby ‘could and should’ have reported John Smyth’s abuse of boys and young men to police in 2013.

Welby said at the time, ‘it is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility’ for his response after he was first told about the abuse. he added, ‘i believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England.’

In his first interview since resigning, Justin Welby told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the sheer scale of the problem was, "a reason – not an excuse," for his failure to act after taking the job in 2013.

"Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case - and yes I knew Smyth, but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks," he said. The ‘reason’ is explained as being due to the ‘overwhelming’ sheer scale of the problem. Which is emphasised.

"It was overwhelming, one was trying to prioritise - but I think it's easy to sound defensive over this. "The reality is I got it wrong. As Archbishop, there are no excuses."

We would question, who is one? He does not say, ‘I’ was trying to prioritise. This is a difficult topic and one which is rightly sensitive to him. As Archbishop, he says, ‘there are no excuses.’ We look to see if there any excuses now he is no longer Archbishop.

He admits he got it wrong. This is an admission and not a confession. An admission acknowledges responsibility for that which someone has done. A confession is an admission and an acknowledgement that it was wrong.

In his interview Welby expressed concern about the pressure on public figures, saying there can be a "rush to judgement,” before adding, "There's an absence, I'm not talking about safeguarding here, there is an absence of forgiveness; we don't treat our leaders as human. For what reason should the leaders be forgiven?” "We expect them to be perfect. If you want perfect leaders, you won't have any leaders."

Did Justin Welby make a mistake because he was not perfect? This was an extremely difficult and sensitive time for Welby who admits to having made a mistake. This could be considered as minimising in context and he takes ownership of it.

When listening to what people say, we have to actively listen to determine whether they are either providing an admission or a confession.

Reference to written article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89y9g83e92o

All blog subjects are identified, validated and written by the DDL Team. See www.ddlltd.com for more on Deception Detection Lab Ltd.