...become a part of a religious organization that Mr. Nalley alleges suggested to his son
that if you kill yourself you go to heaven.
He will also tell you that his son was emotionally distraught on the occasion of losing a girlfriend.
And what male among us doesn't know that feeling?
For his son it was quite obviously overwhelming.
What is important about Mr. Nalley in this circumstance is the case that he brought against
the clergyman or the organization?
Both.
Both.
Yes.
And you lost that case, Mr. Nalley, before the Supreme Court of California.
Yes.
All right, we should choose a lawyer to explain this, but essentially as I understand this
decision, sir, this court said that since this was not a licensed person you cannot
hold that person responsible for any...
That was part of the decision, yes.
Yeah.
Is it your intention to take this to the Supreme Court?
Yes.
Establish for us briefly, what is it, what is your grievance, sir, what is it you're
asking this court to consider?
Well, my son died in 1979.
The counselors or the clergymen not only knew that he was going to commit suicide, at least
one of them knew how.
They knew that together with another girl, a girlfriend of his, a member of the church,
he told her that he was going to commit suicide, told her that he was going to do it by shotgun
shells, or shotgun.
They got into the car, they went down to Grundale Galleria, went up to J.C.
Penny's where he bought the shotgun shells.
And he brought them back and he left our house on a Saturday and the body was found on Monday
with his head blown off.
And you are the grieving father who not only mourns the loss of your son, would it be fair
to say that you have a rage against this church for failing to be alerted by what you consider
to be overwhelming evidence that this was going to happen?
That's correct.
Well, rage has a way of dying and determination has a way of gathering.
And not the sorrow, the sorrow lives with you probably through the day you die.
But determination, to see this through.
I've been with it for ten years and if it takes another ten, so be it.
Let us understand the consequences of this lawsuit.
Can you go to your minister?
You're emotionally upset, your husband just left you, you've got these kids.
We have over 300,000 such people.
Should they be responsible if you hurt yourself later?
And is there a difference between your clergyman and a psychiatrist or a licensed psychotherapist?
At the moment, the law says there is.
We should say that the church against whom you brought this, against which you brought
this suit is the Grace Community Church of the Valley in California.
Is this fundamentalist?
Yes.
How was your son raised?
He was raised a Roman Catholic.
So sometime during adolescence he switched, is that it?
No, I acted as a father as how my father brought me up.
Generally that's how you, that's a very good start, right?
And brought him up through Catholic school, grammar school, high school, private Catholic
high school and then he went to UCLA and that's where, as I would view it, he fell victim.
You're not holding UCLA responsible.
Certainly not.
Fell victim, you mean became acquainted with recruiters or people who?
Yes, they actively recruited him.
Was it a tenet of this faith that suicide is not a sin and that you go to heaven if
you commit it?
Yes, that is their teaching which is on tape and the quote, paraphrasing it but I think
quite accurately, if you can't cope with your sins, suicide is God's way of calling you
home.
If you are a believer, you will get your reward.
If you are an unbeliever, you will suffer God's judgment.
Dr. Robert Maddox, Doctor of Sacred Theology, your Executive Director of the Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, you're a Southern Baptist minister and you feel the
Nalley decision was correct and you want your chomping at the bridal.
I feel that the decision was fair on the basis of religious freedom.
It was fair on the basis of the facts of the case.
Mr. Nalley, from what I have read of the case and I've spent a good bit of time with the
case, has a bit of selective memory here.
What he's not telling you is that he was advised, according to the court record now, court record,
he and his wife both were advised many weeks, if not months before the young man's death,
that the boy was in trouble, both clergy at the church and doctors with whom they were
consulting recommended that he be institutionalized, that he have psychiatric care and the court
record says because they were embarrassed with their friends and so forth, they chose
not to have the young man committed to an institution.
May I say that is gross error.
That is the court record, the Samoan court record.
It would be difficult to retry this case.
Let us understand why should we care about this other than to join in the sorrow that
Mr. Nalley feels to offer you our condolences and there's not a parent out there that doesn't
feel for what you're about here.
But let's understand this.
Can a preacher sexually abuse under a counseling situation?
Are they protected from?
No, no, no, not at all.
They still can be sued.
Oh, surely.
There's a law that talks about outrageous conduct that anybody comes under.
Well, Mr. Nalley would say that suggesting...
But the courts have suggested, the courts have found that the ministers did not engage
in outrageous conduct.
Dr. Schultz?
They were being ministers.
They were trying to deal with the young man.
And once again, if I may say that is a gross error, that is an uncrewed statement.
Let's let Dr. Schultz...
What did you want to say?
Would you say that sexual abuse by a counselor is a matter of gross...
Oh, gross.
This is Annie Shelly.
You sued your clergyman for sexual misconduct.
I sued my clergyman for malpractice.
He wasn't my clergyman.
He was a counselor.
I didn't know he was a counselor.
Well, you're an adult.
We'll look for third.
Yes, so I...
Well, I'll say that puts it in a different frame of reference.
Oh, so it's okay to sexually abuse an adult but not a child.
Only children you are against.
It's a different category.
It is a different category.
Oh, I beg you.
Because I was over 21, it was okay that he was...
Ms. Shelly, did he rape you?
Did he throw you down on the floor and tie you up or something like that?
What's troubling you?
I'm telling you, Shirley Segal.
Oh, wow.
So, all rape is not...
It's one of the things you're dealing with.
I'd like to speak to this for just a moment.
I'm the founder and coordinator of a group called Stop Abuse by Counselors.
It is never okay for any therapist, clergyman or other, to sexually victimize a client.
Did not say that at all.
Well, just hold your shirt just a minute.
Sure, it's just a different category.
This is an imbalanced relationship.
The client is vulnerable.
It is the therapist, not the client.
What happened to you, Ms. Shelly?
I went to see a counselor because my father was dying.
I was not dealing with it well and I was very depressed.
For about the first year, he helped me.
He helped me get over my relationship with my dad, deal with it, get my feelings under
control and feeling all right.
And then when I suggested that it was time for me to start tapering out of the therapy,
he started telling me that I really wasn't capable of that.
I was really messed up and that if I left, I'd become more messed up.
You had a thing about men.
Well, I had in the time...
Wasn't that his suggestion?
Yes.
In the time, I hadn't been seeing many men and it's because he kept telling me that I
was uncomfortable with men.
I started believing him.
I mean, you have to understand, I went there feeling really vulnerable and depressed and
I went because I needed help.
I wasn't dealing well on my own.
I went and for the first year, yes, he did help me.
He gained my trust.
He gained all my trust.
So I believed what he told me.
Obviously, he knew better than I did because he was the man in the position of the authority.
I understand.
Well, I found out that that's not true.
Tell us, you don't have to give us all the details, but what essentially was the grievance?
What happened?
The fact that he was telling me that I was more messed up than I really was.
Keeping power, basically...
Was there sexual abuse of you?
There was...
Isn't that critical or am I pulling teeth here?
No, it is critical, but it's not the only part of it.
No, but if you don't share that with this audience, we won't have the whole story.
Right, it's the part that people will notice.
Would you rather I not discuss this?
No, it's just that he convinced me that I was sexually incompetent, basically, and that
he could show me how to become competent once more.
Phil, I think what's important to realize is that this is going on all over the country.
You're Rick Ross.
You're an intervention coordinator.
Are you the guy that goes and grabs the kid out of the car and deep programs them?
No, I'm not involved in involuntary...
Any kind of involuntary...
I do deep program individuals who become involved with something their parents are upset about.
Families call me in regards to an individual in their family who's involved in a destructive
group because they're concerned about what's going on.
With an audience that wants to ask a lot of questions of this very enthusiastic panel,
briefly tell us what concerns you.
You feel there's a whole bunch of these folks out there.
It's happening all over the country.
What is happening?
What's happening are there have been many, many suicide attempts in many different extreme
churches that I've been called about.
For example, in the Seattle area, a mother called me about her daughter who had, for
the second time, tried to kill herself.
There was just something going on inside of that church that created a climate of fear,
of deep anxiety.
There were three other suicide attempts and one other death in the same church.
Likewise, there are cases of sexual abuse, child abuse, hemorrhaging all over the country
involving many, many different churches.
Dr. Sills, you are president of the Coalition for Religious Freedom and you are likewise
a Baptist minister.
What do you think?
First of all, we're dealing with a situation where we've got over 387,000 churches across
America, a half million ministers, 250 million people, 160 million that claim to have religious
connections of some kind.
You deal with one or two or three or a dozen isolated cases.
Is that all it is?
What we don't need is government intervention in a situation that establishes the reality
that Big Brother has the right to control the right to choose or not to choose our religious
beliefs.
That's the bottom line of our position.
I have a question for you.
You said before that you didn't think that, since you were older, you said that it was
okay to do adults but not children.
Well, what I was saying is that I think that you should be in control of your own actions
after you reach the point of 18.
Why did you see this guy if he wasn't legal?
Why didn't you have a cert?
I mean, why would you go see him?
It isn't that he isn't legal.
He was recommended to me.
This man was the president of the Northwest Pastoral Counselors Association.
The American Association of Pastoral Counselors claims to be the top counseling group in the
nation of clergymen.
High standards, etc.
It's unfortunate that you have to explain why you allowed us to have...
We are very close...
The reason I allowed it to happen is that it was done to me.
I understand that as an adult I have certain responsibilities, but you also have to understand
that I went because I needed help.
I was obviously not in full...
And most of us aren't.
Most of us are who go to psychotherapists.
They need help.
They go because they need help.
Over here, please.
So I need to know, do these two gentlemen think that her counselor is not held accountable
for his actions?
Not in the least bit.
He's absolutely accountable for his actions.
And in this kind of a situation, we've got criminal laws and we need to utilize them.
What's wrong with the lawsuit?
Why do you support the Nalley decision?
The Nalley decision disallows Mr. Nalley from any kind of judgment against the people whom
he thinks are responsible for his son's death.
There's an awful lot that's involved in this case that has not come out as far as your
program is concerned.
And you'll find that out as we go along.
I don't know how much time you've had a chance to deal with it.
But going back to the situation, as far as Ken Nalley was concerned, and I'm a parent,
I've got three kids and God knows I could never understand or experience what this man
has gone through.
So what I do know is that we don't-
So I'd like to say that the criminal laws do not deal with sexual victimization in a
counseling relationship.
The ethical code of every major therapy group in the nation bars this kind of activity,
holds the therapist solely responsible, but it's not a criminal.
You can't pursue it under criminal law.
Are you there, Caller?
Yes, I am.
Go ahead.
Okay, this recently happened to one of my friends.
She was 15 years old.
She went to one of her local churches and she wanted to talk with the clergyman.
He told her, he got this into her head, that she sacrificed herself and she killed herself,
that she would live for eternity in heaven.
This just happened about a month ago.
Her parents haven't taken any deep breaths.
But the whole school is trying to deal with this problem.
Is there no understanding that the counselor actually suggested to her that suicide might
not be a bad thing?
She had told a few of our friends about this.
I'm not- me personally, I was one of her not as close friends, but she told her close
offenses and it was disgusting.
And we tried to- and we told her everything.
We told her parents.
Her parents talked with her and she just believed him.
Hang on a minute.
First of all, I want to say this is 1988 and the word clergyman is outdated.
I also happen to be a member of the clergy and I'm not a plant.
Very good point.
I'm not included in the word clergyman.
What I'd like to say is if a person hangs out a shingle and says I'm an attorney and
doesn't have the education or the background to support that, he can be indicted on fraud.
If a person hangs out a shingle and says I'm a doctor and doesn't have the education of
the medical school, he also is practicing under fraudulent action.
However, anybody in this country can suddenly magically and incantationally call themselves
a pastor.
I get things in the mail all the time about the benefits of tax breaks by just calling
yourself a pastor.
I think all of us have an accountability to make sure that our clergy people, our pastor
counselors are well trained seminary.
Nellie is just one person among many stepping forward to say, I'll bet you more of us go
to our pastor for so-called counseling than would be true of a licensed psychotherapist
or a psychiatrist.
Okay.
So we've got a whole what?
Over 300,000 people out there.
You show up, you get out the Kleenex, you cry your eyes out.
Who is that person?
And how smart is that person?
And what has been that person?
You have to know when to refer on.
Yes.
You have to know your own limitations.
Now, as a clergy person, how am I doing?
All right.
I don't want you mad at me.
We're too early in the show.
I assume you counsel.
I do.
I assume you also respect and feel rather, it's almost a sacred liaison you have here
with us.
Oh, absolutely.
Should you be held liable?
I know it's complicated.
I now have to hold malpractice insurance.
I hold malpractice insurance.
Does that upset you?
In a way it does.
And it upsets me not so much that there are people who have been lacking accountability
and lacking training and education, but that they have a charisma and people flock to them.
Right.
But here's two testimonies now about suicide and the fact that there are apparently people
out there teaching you that maybe it's God calling you home.
Doesn't that terrify you?
Absolutely it does.
The theology of this particular church, and really I think the theology of much of Protestantism,
would not condemn a person to hell who does commit suicide.
I do not know anybody that thinks, that encourages suicide.
Nobody that is not walking around.
Phil, careful.
We've got a really basic religious freedom issue.
Please let me make this point.
In the what?
In the fundamentalist church I spoke of, let's talk about creating an environment that may
be conducive to suicide.
The 15 year old girl who was in a psychiatric hospital with her wrist bandage and her mother
frantic, was in a church where they created an environment, an extreme kind of an environment,
where people felt that suicide was the option, the way to get out of this horrible, intense
dislike world.
Well, that is such an exception.
We've also seen it happen.
Jim Jones certainly presided over it.
Now I don't want to suggest that means everybody's responsible, but isn't it?
At the very least, a very distracting example of what apparently we're able to do to some
people.
Religion is all powerful for us.
Oh, good and evil.
Please let me get this caller out.
I'll give you that opportunity.
Are you there, caller?
Hi.
Yes, I am here Phil.
I would just like to say that I think religion in this country is getting a little out of
hand with all these cults and preachers on TV selling themselves.
So what do you want to do?
Do you want to decide who gets on TV and who doesn't?
No, no, no.
That's not what I'm saying.
Well, I just...
You know, they said Jesus was getting out of hand too.
Oh, absolutely, Phil.
So who decides who's not out of hand?
Well...
See, that's the problem, Burden.
I tell you what, I'm going to be the head of the religion department.
I'll decide who gets to have a church.
You don't mean that.
You don't mean that.
You want one some guy behind closed doors decide who can be?
No, no.
I interrupted you, Carl.
You wanted to say...
Part?
You wanted to say what?
What's your point?
I just feel that...
You just mentioned Jim Jones and mass suicide and this gentleman here who saves people.
It's all getting out of control and if people don't just realize religion is something that's
within themselves, they don't necessarily have to go see their clergymen to solve their
problems.
They don't necessarily have to go fill their guts except when they're most gullible.
They're most vulnerable at those points.
All right.
I'll tell them you said that.
Can I talk about the accountability issue for a minute?
Okay, briefly.
No matter what the abuse is, our experience, and we hear from people all over the country,
when they try to resolve it through a church or denomination, there's forgiveness and redemption
for the minister and not one whole hell of a lot for the victim.
You really feel that way?
That's the way it is.
You think most of all the pastor-faithful relationship is one that benefits the pastor
and not the faithful?
Well, I'm not sure I would say that.
I'm just saying that there is no way to effectively redress grievances against a member of the
counseling clergy or a minister.
And until and unless members of the counseling clergy are brought under state regulation,
there will not be, and we recommend highly that nobody see anybody who is not licensed.
You want the Holy Father Monsignor right reverend to be a state guy who passes a board?
There's got to be something.
No, wait.
That's not what I'm saying.
We've got to send Father Flanagan to City Hall to get a piece of paper.
What is it?
You want to do this?
Yes.
And the rabbi too.
He's got to go down to City Hall and pass a test.
Oh, how much kind of a bureaucracy is this going to be?
That all sounds...
What?
Auto mechanics.
Who does?
Auto mechanics.
You know, it's true.
You're doing... Barbers.
The people who cut my hair have to have a license.
If I bring my soul to these people, they've got to have a license too.
Well, all right.
I'm setting up offices at City Hall and I'll decide who gets a license.
This is not funny when you consider the pain that Mr. Nally has gone through and when you
consider the number of people who go to the pastor first before they think... A lot of
people think...
It's also because a lot of the most unscrupulous people will hide behind a church.
It's bad news to the church, but it's also the fact that these unscrupulous people hide
behind them because they know the separation is there.
Well, this all sounds very good, but the thing is our constitution says we have to have separation
of church and state.
Separation, that's what I said.
How can we do that?
I tell you, if there was no problem, we wouldn't be doing this program.
Well, I'm saying that there is a way to do that.
You don't think it's a violation of the separation?
It's not.
What we're asking is not for complete requisite training, but that they refrain from a list
of prohibited acts such as the law we have in Washington.
We tried for two years to get counseling clergy under that.
Yeah.
What's one of the things?
One is to don't have sex with clients.
Don't we know that?
A lot of the clerks don't do it.
You're going to tell us that all relations psychiatrists and professionals don't do that?
No, but you have a record.
We don't keep our clients.
Top 16 professional organizations, the field of psychiatry has the highest suicide rate
of all.
Yes, I know.
We always say that.
I agree with that.
I know.
And among talk show hosts, boy, we got our problems too.
I can't wait to see what the computer says about us.
It is a fact that there are more suicides among the psychiatric community, but therefore
what follows?
What's the point?
That therefore we shouldn't trust them?
No, not anymore so that you wouldn't trust your clergy.
That they're human too.
That they're human too.
But psychiatrists-
First of all, a lot of people go to the clergy for counseling because they're not going to
get charged 50 bucks an hour.
That's one point.
Secondly, they don't go to the psychiatrist because there's just a lack of credibility
in so many arenas in that area.
Oh, no.
It is a problem.
No, no, no.
The federal government didn't say who, what, and what is not acceptable religious practice.
The community of clergy is breathing a sigh of relief because of the Nalley decision,
particularly by the Supreme Court.
We're talking about-
What does the psychiatric community feel about this decision?
Well, Mr. Nalley may try them next.
We don't know whether he'll get them.
Oh, no.
They're getting on the ground.
Let me give you all a chance.
This audience wants in and the phones are jammed.
Who is responsible in a client, clergy-client relationship when you're talking about emotions?
We've already made the point several times on other programs here that this is a vulnerable
place for a human being to be.
And who's watching who and who's vulnerable and who can you sue?
Is there a difference between having a license and not having a license?
It's not even necessarily suing them.
Is that the difference?
It's just trying to stop them from doing it to me again or anybody else.
And we'll be back in just a moment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're talking about the situation.
I was involved in a situation when I was very young where a priest did sexually abuse me.
When I went to my parents and tried to tell them, nobody believed me.
And as a result, I went to school in a retarded class with retarded kids because I had emotional
problems up until I would say the sixth grade.
And that's when my father got me out of that class.
I quit school at eighth grade and by the ninth grade I had a severe suicide attempt of 500
pills.
Let's understand your point here.
First of all, nobody believed you when you made the allegation against the priest.
Right.
Nobody believed.
How could I say anything like that?
I assume we have the agreement on the part of Dr. Sills and Dr. Maddox.
Both of you here present as people who are respectful of the ministry and the difficulty
it is to discharge these duties.
This is not isolated.
No.
This is a problem.
We were talking during the break how embarrassed we are as ministers.
Right.
So what is your remedy here?
You don't want us to be able to sue these people.
What would you have us do and how do you fix this?
Especially when you consider the need to cover this up.
It's an interesting dilemma.
A moment ago, just even when you were on stage and this lady next to me, you said, can I
help you?
Do you need to be licensed to be able to offer that point of counseling?
No, but I'm not.
I'm not speaking with a fee and having him be an expert on it.
Let me go on with what we're dealing with.
I'm not, for God's sake, don't believe that I'm giving a blanket over all this as far
as the clergy is concerned.
We've got some guys that ought to be hung.
But what we're dealing with is a reality that we're not dealing with.
We may have a lot, but you've got a large body of life in this country which deals in
the field of religion.
You're not offering that.
Over here to the alternative.
Hi.
I'd like to ask Mr. Nalley when he became aware that this church was preaching that
suicide was okay.
I'm sorry.
And did you counsel then?
After he was dead.
I see.
I see.
Thank you.
The church did not preach that suicide was okay.
They made a theological point that if one was a Christian and a believer who happened
to take his life, that the grace of God extended to that person to heaven.
That's the point that I...
Which is not an endorsement of suicide.
Not at all an endorsement of suicide.
These two gentlemen here in the center, they seem to be against people being able to sue
people of clergy.
Yet I feel they should have the women sitting down here malpractice just as a psychiatrist
gives advice.
They're not licensed.
And that's at least one of the issues on which this case turned.
But people still hold faith in them.
They do?
They do.
Like this woman here, her name is...
I would really like to speak about the licensing issue for just a minute.
The law we have in Washington is not licensure.
It's registration with a list of prohibited acts.
And what it does is regulate business practices.
There is not one thing on there that any reasonable clergy person should object to.
They don't presumably want to have sex with clients, defraud them, misrepresent them.
Is that going to help?
Then you have a means for lifting a license, lifting a registration.
I see.
I see.
And you're a wife.
Yes.
Well, I was always told that you couldn't be forgiven for self-murder.
Is that true?
You know, we could debate that theology.
I don't think that's really what we're debating here.
But it is unfair to suggest that the Church advocated suicide.
But the only thing it is, it's the truth.
And I would like to warn the two reverends here that the tape is here.
And that section is here.
But the tape is here.
And you can hear it for your own ears and make your own judgment.
Hear what, Mr. Nallick?
Hear what?
Hear that if you can't cope with your sins, as I mentioned before,
and my son's sin was he saw a half-naked woman.
That is a caricature of the whole thing.
That is an absolute caricature of the whole thing.
He's alleging that this was an absurd kind of puritanistic, anachronistic theology
that in his son's emotional condition made him feel doomed
or somehow not worthy of God.
He was checking.
Before he died, he was checking with a counselor.
Are you sure?
He wanted to be sure that if you are a believer and commit suicide,
you will go to heaven.
He checked with him.
And this is the preacher man's own words.
You're so quick to blame people for your son's death.
Were you close to him?
And was he that emotionally stable himself?
See, everybody else is getting blamed, but if you knew him, if...
That's the issue.
Usually people who go to counseling are emotionally unstable.
So, you know, that's not the issue.
The issue is what is the responsibility of the person who goes to the counselor?
And how much evidence do you need to know?
If somebody jumps off a building while under psychiatric care,
is the psychiatrist liable?
That's one question.
Is the pastor liable?
No.
You would not be upset if there was a warning
and the warning was not taken seriously?
Oh, now it's complicated, huh?
So maybe you would be upset.
I have one more factor.
What is that?
In the history of trying to commit suicide,
we didn't know it, the pastors did.
The tape that Mr. McNally has, is it of the counselor telling your son?
It's a class given by the church in biblical counseling.
Not with your son.
18 months after the young man's death.
No, that's not quite true, pastor.
That's what the church said, and they go by...
This is a tape which reveals the theology of the organization.
That's right.
Phil, I'd like to hear what the clergymen have to say
about what they would do about holding members of the counseling clergy accountable.
I'll give you an opportunity to do that in just a moment.
Why is one church justified for another?
I'm sorry?
Why is one church justified for another?
The Christian church has a scandal like Jim Baker and Jimmy Slager at the scandal,
and no one tests them anymore, but the Catholic church does it.
It's not even a big thing.
They say it's just one rotten apple out of the bunch.
No matter who does it, it's wrong.
It's bad when they try and cover it up.
You don't think the Catholics are getting the bad press they should be getting?
That's right.
It's not a funny matter.
You want to talk about this?
Hang on just a minute. You want to speak to that?
Yeah.
I was just going to say that I have a daughter that's a senior in a Catholic school,
and I find it very frightening as a parent that she's being taught through school
a Catholic religion, plus they've had different things on packed suicides
and all different types of subjects.
They've even had the Baltimore County Police Department in on all of this
to teach the children, and yet as a parent it concerns me that I might be sending
my child to a Catholic school and hearing all this, and yet I don't know when she comes home
if she may do the same thing.
Well, you're not suggesting the church is supporting this kind of...
No, no. I'm saying the church is doing everything to prevent this,
but I'm saying as a parent it's alarming to think that you could send your child off to school,
and then it's confusing to me.
Well, regarding the Catholic church and pedophilia, everybody should be concerned.
There's been a nationwide cover-up.
In fact, in our area alone we have three Catholic priests who have been engaged
in this sort of activity for years and it has been covered up.
Now the question is, what will the law allow, what kind of testimony does it take
or what kind of evidence does it take to successfully sue a clergyman
who is essentially a non-licensed, often usually a non-licensed counselor?
The now decision to the contrary, we have been successfully suing members
of the counseling clergy in Washington for years, and I do not believe
that this will stop those kind of lawsuits.
Mr. Nealy said that his son was raised a Roman Catholic,
but was he a practicing Catholic when he left for college,
and are you a practicing Catholic now?
Yes. You better be, Naly.
Phil, the children...
There it is, there it is.
What are you trying to be telling me?
Listen to me. God is watching you. He's watching us both.
I hope so.
We both have an iffy chance.
There are so many children that are affected by what we're discussing.
We really haven't even touched on that.
Well, you'll be brief and do so.
Yes. There are children who are beaten in the name of counseling.
There are children who have literally been beaten to death.
There are children who have been denied medical services by their pastoral leaders.
There are women who've been, battered women have been told,
listen, you're lucky you got him, go home and...
Go home and beg your husband.
It doesn't happen in every case, but it does happen.
It happens a lot.
I think that since clergymen are prone to give advice to disturbed individuals,
that goes for rabbis, ministers and priests,
that they should have psychological training.
In other words, they should have, they should be licensed,
and more than that, they should have to undergo the same course of study
that psychologists go in order to get their accreditation.
What's the matter with that?
Briefly. Briefly.
Okay, basically, the issue here is not a matter of training.
I think a person can counsel a person.
It's accountability, basically.
But because I think this decision had a lot to do with the fact
that the person who counseled Mr. Nalley's son was not licensed.
So if it's going to turn on that...
Licensing is one thing, accountability is something else.
If they want to govern themselves, I'm a medical student,
and basically we are taught that we are always accountable.
This Nalley decision appears to relieve religious counselors of legal liability.
That's the question. That's the point.
If you don't have practice standards encoded in law,
it's hard to sue for malpractice.
If you don't have practice standards encoded in law,
it's hard to sue for malpractice.
That's why it would be a very good idea to have members of the clergy
state-regulated in some manner.
But it's a rather distracting image of a whole bunch of religious people
standing in line at City Hall to get a state approval.
Not to me it is, and not when I hear the restrictions.
Recently there was a bill introduced in Texas
which would require the licensing of the practitioners
of the laying on of hands in prayer for the sick.
Really?
The whole ramification, you walk in and shake hands with somebody in the hospital bed,
you better have a license according to that particular...
Oh, that's not true.
Nalley, that's an error that you're not even having.
You didn't even know what you were talking about in that particular case.
I say that there's got to be a government legislature.
No big brother controlling it.
No big brother controlling it.
That's simple.
What we're dealing with is the reality of whether or not the law
is going to control what right you have as an individual.
I've got to break, I'm awfully sorry.
We'll be back in just a moment.
I'm sorry.
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Survivors of Pearl Harbor recall the day of infamy.
Tonight on Action News at 6.
Stop Abuse by Counselors is the organization in Seattle and that's at Post Office Box 68292.
Just let me, I'm glad you waited.
Go ahead, call her.
Yes, Donnie?
Yeah.
This is Christy.
Ten years ago, I slipped my wrist and I had called my pastor.
Meanwhile, I was seeing my Catholic priest about this problem I was having.
I slipped my wrist and he told me to go with the flow.
And I hung up.
I called my parents because after slicing my wrist, I felt life was more important to me than anything else.
So after you committed the act, you were sorry.
That's right.
And we're very pleased to know that you rallied.
Was there any kind of, what happened to the priest?
We sent him away for five years.
He is now in prison for five years.
Yeah, hang on a minute.
Clergymen are licensed by the state to perform marriages, isn't that correct?
So what would be wrong with then licensing them for counseling?
What kind of counseling, you know, that's the whole question.
What kind of test would you give them?
What would determine who passes?
Courses. First of all, they would have to take courses that would then enable them to deal properly with the people that they are,
they are dealing with disturbed people.
You would not want a, just because he came out of a school, most clergymen are given counseling courses as part of their seminaries.
Many are, but.
And therefore for the licensing, they would have had to have taken approved courses.
I'll tell you what scares me when you think how many, half a million of these folks?
I mean, half a million, we know, don't we, that not all of them know what they're doing.
I'm sure.
You've got the certain percentage of them who not only don't know what they're doing,
but in a conscious way imbue the patient with ideas allegedly from God,
which may not be in their long-term emotional or physical best interest.
Well, absolutely. This is what happened.
She went to somebody, she was in a vulnerable state and was completely taken advantage of.
Now, whether this person was licensed or unlicensed, it would have made no difference.
No, but I would have had recourse through the state.
To stop him from at least continuing to do it.
I'm just curious as to what level of education are we talking about to call someone a counselor?
Oh, in Washington all you have to do is say you're counseling.
The counselor at the churches that I stood didn't have one single course in the mental health,
psychology, psychiatry, or nothing.
However, they claimed that they could cure schizophrenia, depression, suicidality, homosexuality, nymphomania,
you name it.
Over here, please.
What finally made you stop seeing the clergyman that you were seeing?
I found out that he had been doing it to other people,
and it was the anger that he had lied to me initially is what snapped me out of it.
It was then rage at everything that he had done.
How old were you at the time?
With you though, it was all right?
Twenty-eight. No, doing it with me wasn't all right. I was into a major denial.
Yes, over here, please.
We're talking about clergymen and the psychiatry field.
What about teachers and guidance counselors? What accountability do they have?
They have specific licensing, but how many suits are brought against them?
How about football coaches?
They're a little fraudulent.
Really, when you think, you know, Pee-wee football?
That's right.
Do they know that that's a baby in that helmet?
And how liable do we want to make them?
Phil, many of the clergy that are involved may characterize psychologists or counselors as being evil or satanic,
and by that means preempt them from even seeking outside counseling,
and that's a major issue we need to think about.
Mr. Nalley, where is your wife at? How come she's not here with you today?
She wasn't invited.
You trying to make me feel bad?
Mr. Nalley, I think that you should have less faith in the clergy and more faith in God.
Thank you, but believe it or not, we Catholics do believe in God, and I think we are Christians.
Yes.
I think one thing you always have to remember is when you're a Christian,
what you always have to remember is when people do go for help, usually they're in a very severe deep depression.
Yes, that's a good point.
So, like this woman said, she really trusted this man.
Here, this gentleman back here was saying, why did she let this happen?
She put all of her faith, all of her trust in this man, and they're giving these people guidance,
and they're living by this guidance, just like Mr. Nalley.
No, we hear the same question.
Well, if he beat you, why did you stay with him?
I do think it's really important to understand that it's possible to get yourself in a situation
where you're really not on all your pins and making all the logical judgments about...
My judgment was definitely not at its best at the time.
But, Phil, we don't need to re-victimize the victims, do we?
No, I agree. That's the point we're trying to make here.
It's not fun to do that at all.
I have to break. I'll give you that. I'm awfully sorry.
Someday we won't have this problem, but it's not today.
We'll be back.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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A new sports drink made in Fresno.
The closer look tonight, live at 5.
Rick Ross is the intervention coordinator at 221 East Camelback Road, Suite 1, Phoenix,
Arizona.
And this is, at the very least, something that has to be on our agenda.
The nally decision by the Supreme Court of the State of California appears.
We'd be here till the tonight show discussing the details of this, and I know that it's
somewhat unfair to give the back of the hand a quick brush to this very complicated case.
But essentially, this court decided that the agency or the church or the people or persons
who were in the company of his son at the time that he was planning and subsequently
committed suicide were not liable for his death.
And Mr. Nally is going to spend the rest of his life pursuing this issue to the Supreme
Court.
He thinks that if a religious figure counsels you and if the flares go up, that you're going
to do something very bad to yourself, that that person has a responsibility to blow the
whistle.
And he is claiming that this organization didn't, and the court is saying, wait a minute,
they weren't licensed, among other things, and now we're back to should that be the difference.
And how much do you want your clergyman to be responsible for the well-being of the loved
ones who go and see?
I think if a clergyman takes the initiative in a situation, he should know the ramifications
of his advice.
And if he knows that he can't deal with a particular situation, he should advise this
person to go to someplace else.
It's similar in a situation, if you come across someone that's injured.
It's an hour show.
Thanks for making the point.
I don't think that they should be licensed or anything.
I don't think that they should be allowed to go too deep into counseling.
If they have someone that's deserved.
What's too deep and how you codify that?
It can be only under a very general thing, not something for months and months.
All right.
I'd just like to make the point that Mr. Nally is correct in the fact that the clergy
told his son to do that, but a counselor doesn't tell somebody to jump off a building.
No, this is complicated in that it has not only psychotherapeutic counseling, or what
do we just say, counseling, it also has religious tenets involved here.
And what it is that people are encouraged to believe.
No small question for the loved ones of the people of the Jonestown Massacre.
Yes.
To whom should the whistle be blown?
The gentleman said he should blow the whistle.
Who do you think?
The parents, I would say.
Someone you love goes to a psychiatrist and talks about suicide.
You know, when is the violation of confidence broken and under what circumstances should
that counselor go to an agency or a loved one and say, I'm fearful about the well-being
of your son.
I'm talking about Mr. Nally's son.
Yeah.
Because you say the psychiatrist should blow the whistle.
He should tell the parents or the next of kin.
Yes.
But apparently this counselor didn't want to do that at all.
No, certainly not.
Yes.
I also lost a daughter similar to where a lot of people believe that she killed herself.
Although I try not to.
She went to counseling and we spent a whole year in counseling with my family.
Yeah.
And a year before she died, I knew something was up and I tried to call counseling and
they said she was gone.
There's no way.
No help whatsoever.
You mean she was gone before she killed herself.
Yes.
Yes, the counseling was gone.
I couldn't get in touch with her again.
Oh, I see.
Did you know that your daughter was considering?
Well, I knew something was radically wrong and I wanted to talk to her again.
Do you blame anybody?
No.
Everybody says, don't you blame God?
Don't you blame people?
I said, no, I can't do that and I'm Catholic.
I can't do that.
Is it your failure?
I believe that it's within yourself.
And the only reason I feel this is because she was adopted and I feel it wasn't she didn't
have my genes.
I have two other kids and they're fine.
So it was the school she was in and we put her into a private school and even that didn't
help.
So it's within the person themselves.
Mr. Nalley, how does the congregation in that church feel about this pastor now?
You know, I don't know.
I'm not a member of the church.
It still functions though.
It moves along.
Oh, yeah.
It's moving along.
And we'll be back in just a moment.
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Survivors of Pearl Harbor recall the day of infamy tonight on Action News at 6.
Mr. Nalley, since we can't solve it through a legal procedure,
I would suggest that you get a support group and go for them.
Thank you, woman.
I still think that the average person will be more able to go to their parish priest or minister before...
I do too. I do too. I'd go to him before I go to...
We have a great deal of religious freedom at Speck here, Bill.
I hope that in the midst of all this pain that we won't lose...