The Church of England is currently facing a much-needed reckoning in Africa. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the leader of the church, announced his resignation in November after an independent review highlighted his failure to report the barrister John Smyth, who was a prolific abuser of children.
Smyth has been found to have physically, sexually, and psychologically abused over 100 boys and young men over a span of four decades at Church of England-affiliated summer camps in England, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. He passed away in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018 at the age of 77, without facing any consequences.
The independent review into Smyth’s alleged crimes, and the Church’s attempts to conceal them, make for a distressing read.
The review discovered that the Church had knowledge of Smyth’s “appalling” abuse of boys in England as early as 1982, but did not make this information public or hold him accountable. Instead, he was encouraged to leave the country and relocated to Zimbabwe without any involvement of the police. It is believed that he abused at least 80 boys in camps he organized there during the 1990s.
One of Smyth’s most horrific crimes occurred in Marondera, near Harare in December 1992. At a camp overseen by Smyth, a 16-year-old boy named Guide Nyachure drowned under suspicious circumstances. Smyth was initially charged with culpable homicide, but the case was eventually dropped after prolonged delays and mistakes in the investigation process. Smyth later moved to South Africa without facing any repercussions for Nyachure’s death.
The abuse inflicted by Smyth on boys in supposedly nurturing and religious settings was unfortunately not an isolated incident. During Smyth’s time in Zimbabwe, child abuse by clergy seemed to be widespread in many other settings. Allegations of abuse within my Catholic boarding school first caught my attention in 1989-90 when I was a student at the Jesuit-run College of St Ignatius of Loyola near Harare. There were whispers about misconduct by a few priests towards younger boys, but no one openly addressed or attempted to stop it.
It was only years later when I was researching for a novel that I learned the extent of clergy abuse in Zimbabwean Catholic schools. I spoke with men who were abused at my old school and two other elite Jesuit schools (St George’s College and St Francis Xavier) in Zimbabwe, and they recounted horrific abuse inflicted on them with impunity.
During my interviews, the names of three priests surfaced frequently. It was revealed that like Smyth and the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church moved these priests to different locations to shield them from accountability. One of these priests, James Chaning-Pearce, was eventually convicted for multiple counts of indecent assault at a Jesuit School in England and sentenced to prison. However, he has not faced any accountability for his alleged abuse in Zimbabwe.
A sad consequence of clergy abuse in Zimbabwe is that Catholic schools like St. Ignatius, St. George’s, and Kutama attracted bright children from across the country, many on scholarships. These children, most from poorer families, saw these schools as an opportunity for a better future but ended up experiencing abuse instead of the promised education and care.
Both the Catholic and Anglican churches in Africa must undergo a reckoning similar to those in the United States and Europe. Full inquiries into historical sex abuse at their schools in Zimbabwe and other African countries are necessary. African victims deserve accountability just like victims elsewhere in the world.
It is reassuring to see that the Catholic and Anglican churches are acknowledging their past mistakes and pledging to protect children in the future. However, their focus on white victims in the West overlooks the pain endured by African victims. It is crucial for the churches to address this and offer justice to all victims of clergy abuse, regardless of their race.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Al Jazeera.
