Clergy to Use More Caution in Counseling, Leaders Say

Although they are relieved that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threw out on Thursday a $1-million clergy malpractice lawsuit arising from a suicide, some leaders in the field of religious counseling said the well-publicized case will cause pastors to be more cautious when they advise people with emotional problems.

The case has been closely watched by the nation’s 2 million ordained religious leaders. It has centered on whether clergy counseling is a spiritual practice, thus protected under the First Amendment, or a psychological practice, which has no such protection.

In dismissing the case, Judge Joseph Kalin of Glendale said any attempt to “impart standards of pastoral counseling would open the floodgates to clergy malpractice suits.”

“All pastoral care nationwide was at risk, because a precedent could have been set for massive government interference--courts and lawyers second-guessing or supervising what priests and rabbis and pastors say to members of their congregations,” said Gene Boutilier, executive director of the Southern California Ecumenical Council.

‘Holding Our Breath’

Added Forest Montgomery, lawyer for the National Assn. of Evangelicals, an organization of 44,000 conservative Protestant churches: “We were holding our breath. . . . We were very much concerned that any decision that pastoral counseling was a province of the courts would have a very chilling effect on the legitimate ministry of the church.”

The case stemmed from a 1979 suit by Walter and Maria Nally against the Rev. John F. MacArthur and other pastoral staff of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley. The Nally’s son, Kenneth, 24, fatally shot himself after extended counseling at the church.

Attorney Robert Toms of Los Angeles, a member of the board of directors of the Christian Legal Society, also hailed the judge’s decision as “sound from a church-state point of view.” He added that it will make religious counselors more cautious, “and I think they should be. It will sensitize pastors” about when they need to make referrals.

“If it does make them more cautious,” said Bruce Hartung, president of the 2,500-member American Assn. for Pastoral Counselors, based in Fairfax, Va., “I’d be pleased. . . . I hope it will raise questions of professional qualifications, who accredits counselors and who sets the basic standards for counseling.”

Careful in Counseling

Msgr. Timothy O’Connell, director of the Catholic Family Life Bureau of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Rabbi Paul Dubin, executive of the Southern California Board of Rabbis, said priests and rabbis are generally careful in their counseling.

“We (priests) do not get in over our heads,” O’Connell said.

Dubin said, however, that a number of rabbis had been considering malpractice insurance recently “because there obviously was this fear. . . . If the decision is upheld, I think it will relieve the anxiety a little.”

“Counselors are going to look more closely at getting better trained,” said Tom Needham, a marriage and family counselor in Encino. Needham and Newton Malony, a professor at the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, noted that the case does not resolve the question of what constitutes good counseling.

“I have never quite bought the position that there is an absolute church-state issue (in the Nally case),” Malony said. “It seems to me there are some minimal concerns for the integrity of human life that should apply to all counselors. . . . The state has a right to expect certain standards of care.

“At the same time, I hope ministers won’t lose their boldness to recommend spiritual solutions.”