FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Frage: Unterzeichnen Generalautoritäten einen Geheimhaltungsvertrag, indem sie versprechen, nie bekannt zu geben, was sie bezahlt bekommen?
Frage: Unterzeichnen Generalautoritäten einen Geheimhaltungsvertrag, indem sie versprechen, nie bekannt zu geben, was sie bezahlt bekommen?
It is highly likely that General Authorities sign a non-disclosure agreement
Not only do many of the employees of BYU sign such non-disclosure agreements, but, those who have access to this information are also required to sign such agreements. Generally speaking, these agreements allow organizations to sue for damages when a breach of confidentiality occurs. The major point here, though, is that if general authorities are given a stipend (for living expenses), it is quite possible that the stipend comes with a non-disclosure agreement (an NDA). This would be the "contract promising never to divulge to anyone what they are paid". Of course, it is presented in a way that makes all sorts of insinuations. But probably if such a thing exists and happens, it follows the standard boiler plate legal language used elsewhere by the Church's legal team to handle the same issue. That contract wouldn't actually list the compensation, and so while this person may have seen the NDA, we can be certain that they have no personal knowledge of what the compensation actually is. The $300,000.00 figure is just being tossed out with no real evidence behind it, save anonymous hearsay.
Now, what is the point of this sort of agreement? Mentioning the NDA in this kind of discussion is intended by the critic to demonstrate that something nefarious us going on. That is, we are meant to conclude that the Church is covering a big secret of some sort with the use of NDAs.
A non-disclosure agreement does not guarantee secrecy
This, however, doesn't make much sense. One problem with an NDA is that in order to get relief the injured party must sue. And in suing, the contract itself would become part of the court case, and potentially available for public scrutiny. If the objective is complete secrecy, then the concept of an NDA utterly defeats the purpose in this case. Not only would it open up hidden information for public consumption, it would also tend to confirm whatever had been said by the general authority who offered information. This would only be some sort of problem if the church was trying to hide something. And so if the church is trying to hide payments to general authorities, then the whole process of having a NDA creates far more problems than it would solve.
Endnoten