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Texas Says Pastors Can Spill Counseling Secrets

The Texas Supreme Court has made a mockery of professional standards for licensed counselors by dismissing a woman's negligence case against a pastor who disclosed her extramarital relationship to church members.

The case focused on the “conflicting duties” of C.L. Westbrook, who is both a licensed professional counselor and pastor of an evangelical church in Fort Worth. He disclosed Peggy Lee Penley's affair after she confided it to him in a counseling session.

While Penley based her negligence claim on the secular duty of confidentiality that a counselor owes a client, Westbrook invoked the constitution of the CrossLand Community Bible Church, which requires church elders to discipline members whose conduct “violates Biblical standards.”

In unanimously siding with Westbrook, the Supreme Court deferred to “the autonomy of a church in managing its affairs and deciding matters of 'church discipline ... or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required of them.'”

“We conclude that the secular confidentiality interest Penley’s professional-negligence claim advances fails to override the strong constitutional presumption that favors preserving the church’s interest in managing its affairs,” the opinion, which reversed a court of appeals, said.

Penley began seeing Westbrook for help with marital problems in August 1999. During a session at his home in October 2000, she told him she had decided to divorce her husband and had engaged in the extramarital relationship.

CrossLand follows the Biblical principle that if a sinner is unrepentant, the sin should be told to the church. In a letter to CrossLand members, Westbrook and the church elders said Penley had engaged in a “biblically inappropriate” relationship for which she refused to repent.

Texas courts have found that the First Amendment does not protect clergy from being sued for sexually assaulting parishioners they were counseling. As the Supreme Court noted, Penley's case is distinguishable because Westbrook was motivated to disclose her affair by his religious beliefs rather than any intent to do her harm.

But Penley assumed that Westbrook, like any licensed counselor, would abide by professional standards. The Supreme Court, in effect, has given carte blanche to a pastor who practices as a licensed counselor to violate confidentiality as long as the disclosure was made “pursuant to the requirements” of the church's disciplinary process.

Why would any parishioner now confide secrets to a pastor who holds himself out to be a secular counselor? What Westbrook's defenders with the Liberty Legal Institute may have gained here for church autonomy may be outweighed by what they have lost in parishioner trust.

By Matthew Heller
7/3/07