Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministries
Moriel Ministries is a fundamentalist Christian ministry headed by Jacob Prasch. I first heard of the ministry when a friend of mine gave me some of Prasch’s works in an attempt to convert me to fundamentalist Protestantism. The ministry targets historically and scientifically illiterate Christians who lack the intelligence to critically assess its claims.
A quick look through the website shows a number of articles on a range of subjects. It would require considerable effort to go through them all, so instead I’ll use a recent posting to illustrate the standards of the ministry.
Under the title “Papal Visit to USA” a number of claims are made by a ministry author, presumably Jacob Prasch. I’ll address them paragraph by paragraph.
“The US Department of Justice squashed a prosecution brought against Pope Benedict XVI because it is not normally legally possible to bring a prosecution or criminally related litigation against a foreign head of state (a status the Pope enjoys ever since Ronald Reagan granted full diplomatic recognition to the Vatican as a nation).”
The author is probably referring to the 2005 decision of a US District Court judge to remove the Pope as a defendant in a lawsuit. The author refers to it as a “prosecution”. The term “prosecution” only applies to criminal matters. This was not a criminal matter so whoever wrote this article was either ignorant of basic terminology or dishonest. And it was the judge that removed the Pope as a defendant, the US Department of Justice did not “squash” anything.
“The prosecution was bought on behalf of victims of pedophilia perpetrated against small children by members of The Roman Catholic clergy. In his former position as Vatican enforcer , Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now the pope) signed the notorious ‘Criminale Solicitacciones’ instruction first issued by Pope John XXIII and re-issued by John Paul II. This documentation proves that no fewer than three popes knew of both widespread pedophilia and sex with animals by members of its clergy at least as as early as 1960, and allowed it to continue, instructing the Roman Catholic hierarchy to protect sex criminal nuns and priests at the expense of not protecting the little children whose lives these criminal sex perverts destroy by the thousands.”
Again, the lawsuit was a civil one – it was not a “prosecution.” Crimen sollicitationis was an instruction issued in 1962 under Pope John XXIII. Crimen sollicitationis remained in force until 2001, when Cardinal Ratzinger produced an “implementing letter” that brought new procedures into place. So rather than “re-issue” Crimin sollicitationis, as the author claims, Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II did the exact opposite and eliminated its effect.
Crimen sollicitationis enumerated a number of possible abuses that could potentially occur in the confessional but there is no evidence that such abuses were common, contrary to the authors assertion that three Popes “knew” of “widespread pedophilia and sex with animals.”
The author then asserts that Crimen sollicitationis “instruct(ed) the Roman Catholic hierarchy to protect sex criminal nuns and priests.” This is absurd. Firstly, Crimen sollicitationis primarily applied to abuses of the confessional and thus would not apply to nuns. Secondly, it did not “protect” priests from anything. As shown in a previous post, not even Thomas Doyle, the priest and Church critic that made Crimen sollicitationis public, believes it is a conspiracy to cover up abuse. No expert believes that.
“Copies of this official Vatican document signed by Ratzinger and English translations from the Latin are in the public domain and freely available on the internet.”
The documents that the author is probably referring to are an alleged Latin copy of Crimen sollicitationis and an English translation produced by Thomas Doyle. Neither are signed by Ratzinger.
“Instead of receiving a presidential reception upon arrival on American soil, Pope Benedict XVI should have been handcuffed, arrested, arraigned, criminally indicted, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If it is indeed his signature on that wicked document, Ratzinger should be convicted on the basis of prima face evidence and this evil criminal should die in federal prison with absolutely no chance of parole.”
I think this final paragraph amply illustrates what the author and this ministry are about: hatred. On the basis of an absurd and error-filled conspiracy theory that even the Church’s most vocal critics reject he wants to throw a man behind bars for the rest of his life. What other extreme actions can be justified on similarly weak evidence?
The kind of material produced by this ministry is morally no different from the kind of bigotry spewed from anti-Semitic and racist websites all over the Internet. When you allow hatred to dominate your thinking, you will accept any silly argument that helps sustain your hate-lust. The unfortunate thing is that most of this ministry’s followers lack the intelligence to separate truth from lies and are likely to believe this trash.
Related Posts
- My Response to Moriel Ministries
- Crimen sollicitationis
- Richard Dawkins Loses Last Ounce of Credibility
- Christopher Hitchens on Papal Fallibility
- The Pope’s Visit to Australia
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18 Responses to “Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministries”
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[...] antidote to the stupidity displayed by Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministries is an article on the Lex Communis blog. It talks of the hypocrisy of those using the Clergy Abuse [...]
“Tysen” on the General Blog/TJWoodlock blogsite appears to be both out of hisdepths and factually in error regarding hisresponse to Jacob Prasch:
1. A visit to National Center For Policy Analysis website (www.ncpc.org) or Baylor’s legal website (www.baylor.aceglobal.com) will reveal that Jacob Prasch referring to the squashed litigation against Joseph Ratzinger (cum Pope Benidict xvi) as a prosecution stopped by the US Dept. of Justice was correct in its terminology and details.
In Texas a civil litigation brought privately in connection with a criminal prosecution is legally referred to as a special category of ‘Prosecution’ called “civil prosecution” (Tex. Hum. Res. Code 36.001 et.sig).
The criminal case is the Juan Carlos Patino-Arango public prosecution of this indicted pedophile priest who is a fugative from justice. The 2005 civil action brought by Daniel Shea in conjunction with it against the present pope is thus legally defined as a civil prosecution. Jacob Prasch is perfectly correct in his terminology, and you are wrong.
2. Jacob Prasch’s report that this civil prosecution was squashed by The Justice Department is confirmed as true and was reported in multiple national publications and news mediums including USA TODAY and CBS News (references easily available on internet). The motion to squash the civil action against the pope was indeed brought by The US Justice Department at the request of The State Department for the exact reasons Jacob Prasch accurately reported.
3. The 1962 Crimen Solicitationes instruction was indeed reissued as was reported in 2005 with the memo implimenting it signed by Ratzinger (as Jacob Prasch correctly asserts) who is now pope but then Prefect of The Congregation For The Doctrine of The Faith (in former times known as ‘Inquisitor General’). It reads: ” Grave Crimes such as sexual abuse of children will be handled by his office (the congregation) with any tribunals a Secret Pontifical proceeding”.
4. The Daniel Shea litigation claimed (supported by various academic legal opinions and Latin grammar and syntax lingual experts) that the document carried two aspects ; the sacrimental and the general.
5. So afraid was the Vatican of this ‘smoking gun’ that contrary to your own demonstrably abject assertions that it had nothing to do with protecting pedophile clergy and only applied sacrimentally, it was the Vatican who by diplomatic means petitioned the State Department to have the matter squashed, again further confirming the accuracy of Jacob Prasch’s statement. Indeed, the pope’s own admission that the crises was handled wrongly by the Roman Catholic church supports Jacob Prasch’s conclusions, and very plainly mitigates against your own.
You have distorted the facts, spoken in ignorance of the protocals of the law where you misrepresent yourself as having an expertise you seemingly either do not, (or else have not researched the subject carefully if you do) , and as is typical in matters of religious hypocrisy, resorted to the ad hominem approach in a feeble attempt to circumlocute the shameful reality. For the record, Moriel would not define itself as “Protestant”, but merely as biblical and Christian. Indeed, many of us are former Catholics who upon reading the scriptures, by God’s goodness, came to a saving biblical faith in Jesus Christ rejecting the hocus pocus of sacrimental superstition and the sexual perversion among your clergy.
Your own tone and insulting demeanor warrants a response less gracious than we would prefer. It would appear that your arrogance and ignorance are eclipsed only by your apparent dishonesty. But frankly, that is precisely what is to be expected. If nothing else you are indeed par for your course. Like your corrupt pontif, you ludicrously pontificate a badly orchestrated litany of convoluted babel and expect the world to believe you; but those days are long over. The efforts of a crooked religion to whitewash its disgusting grand scale malevolence against defenseless children is futile. Just as it says in your own Latin Vulgate: “Vanitas Vanitatem, Omnia Vanitas”.
Get Well Soon. For your own sake we sincerely hope that with a genuine repentence you will abandon your pedophilia plagued Roman Catholicism and convert to Christianity before it is too late. Your silly Novenas, necromancy prayers to the dead, icons , rosaries, and liturgical ‘Mea Maxima Culpas”, (let alone child molesting sex pervert priests) won’t and can’t save you; only Jesus Christ can. Salvation is only through Him alone , not a corrupt institution with a corrupt leader and thousands of sex criminals in its clergy. Do yourself a big favor – put down the catechism and papal encyclicals and pick up a bible before you spend all of eternity with no hope wishing you had. The real Jesus of the scriptures (not to be confused with that ridiculous plastic idol forbidden by the second of the 10 commandments that you keep on your dashboard to help you find a parking space or whatever) said: ‘Permit The Little Children To Come Unto Me”; He did not say to Rape Them.
Pax Vobiscum,
(The Ex Catholics At Moriel Who Now By God’s Grace Most Thankfully Became Christians)
[...] recently wrote a post in which I characterised Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministries as unreliable. This caused a member of Moriel Ministries to respond in the post’s comment [...]
The attack on Jacob Prasch is typical of those devoid of integrity and honesty. The issue ultimately is the Catholic Cult masquerading as Christianity. Anyone who would try and assasinate or discredit a true Bible teacher in order to protect a proven currupt, paedophile “priesthood” must, by association, themselves be guilty.
Thanks for your comment Mark.
I don’t consider Prasch to be a “true Bible teacher.” Nor would even a tiny fraction of reputable biblical scholars. It’s only those that are too ignorant, or too unwilling, to see through his rhetoric who would come to that conclusion.
To deem the entire Catholic priesthood as “paedophile,” as you have done, is to use a stupid, bigoted stereotype. There are good priests and bad priests, but you simply focus on the bad ones and then generalise to the entire group. It’s the same thing that racists and anti-Semites do – they simply find those that are ‘bad’ in each group and ignore those that are good.
I note that you don’t point out why my “attack” is “devoid of integrity and honesty.” If it’s so easy to prove me wrong, then why write a nasty reply, then imply some sort of guilt by association, and leave it at that?
And why didn’t Moriel Ministries link to my original article and my response? It’s almost as though they don’t want people to hear both sides of the argument. I’ve hyper-linked to their website, and given lengthy quotes of their material before responding to it, but they didn’t even bother to link to the article that they were criticising.
We praise the Lord for Jacob Prash voice, and have leared much truth.
Thanks for the comment.
I don’t know which ‘Lord’ you worship, but he’s obviously not concerned with the truth.
I think that if you were all truly christian and following Jesus as you all say, you would stop arguing like this and just get down on your knees and pray. This is exactly what Jesus does not want. Disunity, you are not doing tha faith any favours. In the end days there will be false prophets and sheep in wolves clothing will try and deceive, as I said get down on your knees and pray that you are not deceived.
I myself read a lot of Moriel stuff, but I want to say one thing to Tysen or Woodlock, whoever it is that said we followers of Moriel Ministries are not intelligent enough, that is definitely wrong. You have made a broad statement like that that only shows how narrow minded you might be yourself. And anyhow as I said before get down on your knees and start asking Jesus, through the Holy Spirit to guide you into all the truth, only He can. These are difficul times for all of us.
First and foremost our love for each other must reign, Jesus said they will recognise that we are truly His disciples by the love that we have for each other.
“I think that if you were all truly christian and following Jesus as you all say…”
I never actually said that I was Christian. What I did do was look at a whole bunch of the claims being made by that ministry and drew the conclusion that they were mostly false. If you have no issue with a ministry that frequently makes false claims then there’s nothing more for us to discuss.
It’s a pity that people, whatever they claim to believe, are not taught to think logically. The lack of logic causes people to generalize and hold on to a paradigms that are not dictated by the facts but rather screens out the facts which go against the paradigms. It is true that not all Catholic priests are paedophiles and it is illogical to claim that they are. However, the Catholic Church has tried to cover up the sexual abuses by priests. I know that, having been educated by nuns and priests. Let’s face it, the Vatican has tried to cover up the Inquisition itself from the laity. I was taught nothing of that, or of the Borgias, during my childhood schooling, and neither was any other Catholic I knew.
Anyway, it is equally illogical to draw a conclusion that the claims of a ministry of any sort are mostly false without being able to explain why, especially when you take the high-handed attitude that those who disagree with you therefore have no issue with the ministry making false claims. It stands to reason that such a person would not see the claims which are not even identified as false, and has as much a right to see things that way as the person who sees false claims but gives no explanation of why they are false. Yianna makes an interesting point. However, Jesus only wanted unity among those who were truly His. The whole New Testament shows that it is better to be divided by truth than united in error–and history, theology and logic show us that the Catholic Church is full of error and always has been. For over three hundred years it tortured people to death who disagreed with them. Whatever Jacob Prasch teaches, I’m sure, from what I’ve read on his site, he does not teach that anyone should torture and kill those who disagree with him.
THE LORD SAID DON’T ARGUE OVER THESE THINGS. HAMASHIACH WILL SEPARATE THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS ON THE FINAL DAY. SO LET ALL THE DEAD DOGS LIE (MEANING LITERALLY LIE AND ALSO LET THEM LAY DEAD)AS THEY WILL FIND OUT WHO THEY REALLY ‘TOLD OFF’ COME JUDGEMENT DAY. I WON’T BE BACK TO THIS ‘BLOG’ AGAIN SO GOD’S SHALOM UNTIL HE COMES!
Mr.Tysen
On reading your comments about Jacob Prasch I think you are like a dandelion tossed by the wind and have no purpose and direction in life.
Pastor Prasch teaches truth and you should learn from it. We would pray that your you to get saved .
Ive been a Christian for over 20 years and have studied theology for nearly as long,i met Jacob in the mid 90,s when he was involved with a television ministry in Hawaii.I found him to be one of the most sound biblical theologians ive ever met,your critique of him is unproffesional and poorly done,your mom should never let you on the computer again.
Misra and Ivan, you’ve both subjectively concluded that I am wrong and Prasch is right. You offer no arguments to support you views, only your conclusions. If anything, you support my argument that the only people that would support this guy are biased and shallow thinkers.
And Ivan if you are going to call someone “unproffesional” then you might learn to spell the word.
Thank God that He preserved Jacob Prasch, and few other men who have balls to stand up fearlessly and point out who these wicked people are. These great men of God, Jacob Prasch is one, have given their lives to be in the frontline to point out who are the deceivers, false prophets, false church leaders, false churches, false Bibles are. At least Jacob Prasch doesn’t make people feel obligate on giving whatsoever they own so their salvation is secured, even worse, come to the small box the size of a PortaLoo to confess your sins to a yet, another pervert and a sinner.
For those of you who don’t understand or find Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministry unreliable, you need to get out of the deception you’re in, get right with God and hear His Word put out plainly by these great men.
Hello Ben
What I attempted to do with my post was to make a series of claims that were backed up by evidence. I referred to reputable media reports and was careful in every claim I made. You have responded by saying that you consider Prasch to be highly credible and while you have every right to believe such a thing I would have though it would have been more helpful to at least attempt to illustrate where I have got things wrong in my post. I also think that it’s unfortunate that you believe that every single Catholic priest is a “pervert” as I believe that everyone deserves to be judged on their own merit’s and not on some derogatory stereotype.
I welcome any interaction with those who are willing to point out where they believe I am wrong.
I look forward to that occurring in the future.
Romans 3;1, Psalms 147:19, Deut 29:29
Pastor JJP qualifies to be a true bible preacher.
I love to read and listen to his bible exposition.
My country, the Philippines has no bible teacher
like him who can teach the bible in its own merit.
My country is pre dominantlypentecostal/charismatc
where teachings have no more substance nor nutritional values. MONEY, MONEY,MONEY gospel is preached!!!
visitors like Benny Hinn, John Avanzini, Don Clowers are junks. They knew nothing about biblical lessons to enrich believers on the word
of God, instead this charlatan preachers have
enriched their pockets from their collections
during offering. Sad to think that the vast
majority of believers are victim. We are praying
that one day we could have true teacher like JJP
to mentor us for spiritual growth and maturity.
Prosperity gospel preachers have nothing to do for
one’s bible knowledge.
I don’t find him convincing at all. If you’re impressed by him that’s your right. I’m glad you didn’t attempt to insult me like his other fans.