Can a pastor testify against a defendant in a civil case?

People v. Livaditis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 759, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72, 831 P.2d 297 (Livaditis ), the trial court determined that it had discretion to exclude the testimony if the court found it untrustworthy. The trial court said the timing of the contact between defendant and the pastors rendered the testimony unreliable, explaining: "[W]hen you look at the date of the contact, December of 1998, three months before the first scheduled trial date, over a year after the defendant had been in custody, after there had been considerable examination by the experts in terms of state of mind issues as it related to the guilt phase, after all of that had been explored, after a defense had been explored and prepared in terms of those issues, after all of that and with considerable motive for indicating a remorse and a state of mind that is absolutely, absolutely self-serving under the circumstances, the court would not have given second thought at all to following the line of analysis in Livaditis. "

[198 Cal.Rptr.3d 405]