Cardinal Vincent Nichols said he regrets Mr Welby's absence from the conversation after the Church of England leader announced he was quitting over failures in handling an abuse scandal.

Mr Welby had warned last month, as the assisted dying Bill was being officially introduced in Parliament, of a "slippery slope" in terms of who would be eligible for such a service if it was legalised.

On November 12, Mr Welby announced he would be standing down after an independent review concluded serial abuser John Smyth might have been brought to justice had the church leader formally reported him to police more than a decade ago.

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The resignation has intensified demands for Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, to follow suit due to his alleged neglect of multiple safeguarding complaints.

Tim Welby noted that "so many people were calling for his resignation" that his father's position had become "untenable," according to The Mirror.

He said his father was "really, really cross that it didn't occur to him to triple check" whether the abuse had been reported to the authorities. "The frustrating thing is I don't think it ever occurred to him that it hadn't been reported to the police," he said.

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