By: RadhakrishnaNS
THE Church of England on Tuesday (20) banned non-disclosure agreements after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that they must no longer be used to silence abuse victims.
Justin Welby told Times Radio that he was ‘horrified’ to learn of racist abuse aimed at priests and staff within the church, as exposed in a BBC Panorama documentary on Monday (19).
Dr Elizabeth Henry, the Church of England’s former adviser on race relations, told the BBC’s Panorama that ethnic minority priests and staff who made complaints of racism within church have been paid off to ‘buy their silence’.
She alleged that a number of victims who received compensation had to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Responding to this, Archbishop Welby said that he had been unaware that non-disclosure agreements, known as NDAs, were being used to prevent those who received payouts over racist abuse from speaking publicly about the incidents.
He revealed that he and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, have written to ‘senior people’ within the church’s administration telling them that the confidentiality agreements must no longer be used.
“I wasn’t (aware). I have said many times that I am totally against NDAs. NDAs are unacceptable. I am just horrified by that and horrified by the fact of racism,” he told The Times.
“In every large group of people you’ll find people with racist ideas. But within the church and institutions of the church we have to stamp that out. The Panorama programme was shaming and rightly shaming.”
Archbishop Welby added that he was grateful to Henry for speaking out.
