As 400 million viewers watched worldwide, Justin Welby carefully lowered the 22-karat gold crown onto Charles’ head before uttering: “God save the king.”

The 1,000-year-old coronation ritual in May last year, established the key role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in public life.

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Described as Family Chaplain of Windsor Househe also chaired the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince George’s baptism and the Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

The leader of 110 million AnglicansWelby used his position as Britain’s most senior cleric to rule on Brexit and tax evasion.

The archbishop memorably describes the The conservative government Program for migrants in Rwanda as “morally unacceptable”.

Yet in a recent test of his own moral judgment, he came up woefully inadequate.

An independent report released last week called it “appalling” child abuse scandal which was concealed by the Church of England.

Worse still, Welby was informed of the abuse in 2013, but failed to report it.

The monster responsible — a Canadian-born lawyer and clergyman called John Smyth QC – was able to settle in southern Africa and continue its diseased assaults.

Smith had subjected teenagers to horrific attacks while running Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s.

Invited to a soundproof shed in his Hampshire garden, Smyth beat youths he considered to have sinned in a frenzy of sadomasochistic savagery.

One victim said the beating caused blood to flow and recalled: “Before, we had to wear diapers. The scale and severity of this practice was horrific. I saw bruised and marked buttocks about two and a half months after the beating.

Welby worked at summer camps where Smyth allegedly met his victims, but insists he was unaware of the abuse allegations until 2013.

In AfricaSmyth preyed on more innocent people. “Justin Welby talks a lot about the impact of colonization and slavery,” one victim said, adding that in Zimbabwe many believed Smyth’s abuse had been “exported from the UK to us”.

When the damning report was published, Welby, who said it was “better to be awake than asleep”, believed he could denounce it and resisted calls to resign.

For six days, the Old Etonian the former oil executive stubbornly hung on.

His iron-eared obstinacy provoked a storm of complaints from his usually moderate and genteel Anglican flock.

A petition of 15,000 people demanded that he resign and the Prime Minister clearly did not support the archbishop.

Yesterday, Welby finally discovered his moral compass. It was too late to save abuse victims from further unnecessary suffering.

And too late to avoid lasting damage to his beloved Anglican church.

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