Disgraced Catholic apologist Alex Jurado has resurfaced publicly just five months after a scandal involving allegations of sending sexually explicit material to multiple women.
Jurado is the founder of Voice of Reason, a popular Roman Catholic apologetics channel with over half a million followers across multiple social media platforms.This past summer, several whistleblowers in the Catholic apologetics community accused Jurado of having an inappropriate relationship with a teenager, along with sharing sexually explicit messages he sent to multiple women.
Jurado denied the grooming allegations, stating that he was taking legal action against those who labeled him a pedophile to clear his name, but he admitted involvement in the sexting scandal.
As a result, after being broken by his sin and wicked deeds, he pledged to “spend the rest of my life in prayer and in penance to make reparation for all of the damage that I’ve caused, because I’ve caused a lot of damage.”
Part of this penance seemingly involved resuming aspects of his ministry.
In a video posted to YouTube on December 15—addressed to his more than 167,000 followers—Jurado thanked the “hundreds of thousands” of people who had contacted him with words of encouragement, prayer, and love.
He noted that while he had stopped creating content for the last five months, which he described as the only “appropriate” thing to do in light of the scandal, tens of thousands of people had expressed their desire to see him return.
While he expressed a wish to serve those who had shown him mercy and were clamoring for his return, Jurado stated that he could not do so publicly on account of the scandal it would create.
And even though I would love nothing more than to continue doing this online publicly for everyone to see, even though I would love nothing more than that, if my presence on YouTube, if my presence on Instagram, if my presence on Tik Tok, if my presence on these public forums is going to scandalize anybody, is going to hurt more people, and if I’m going to be a a black eye on the church, then I don’t want to do it.
I want to help the church. I don’t want to hurt the church. I want to to help the public. I don’t want to hurt the public. And as of right now, it seems like if I were to make a return publicly, not only would it cause a lot of scandal, unfortunately, which is understandable because it’s my fault cuz I did what I did, not only would it be scandalous to the public right now, but it could also be hurtful, it could also damage me, it could also damage my soul, and it could hurt me spiritually.
Privately, however, is a different story.
Explaining that during the five months he has been away, he has been receiving counseling and working on himself to address his sin—and that he is now in a good place—Jurado reveals that he has eliminated all social media from his accounts and that only his producer has access to his passwords for accountability.
He reiterates that while his bishop has forbidden him from engaging in public church ministries, including singing in choir, leading Bible studies, serving at the altar, or teaching catechesism all things he used to do, his spiritual director and therapist believe it is acceptable for him to resume a private ministry not associated with the church’s official ministry.
Now in this healthier headspace, Jurado has resumed creating content, but only away from the public eye on his Patreon page, where exclusive members can receive “special access to video lessons, blog posts, behind-the-scenes content, direct access to me, and more.”
As a result, Jurado has created a substantial amount of content in the past few weeks, including live Zoom calls, videos and impressions from his visit to a megachurch, interviews, and tutorials.
Some of this new content has leaked into the wild, causing his critics to accuse him of reentering public ministry, despite the restrictions he claims he was put under. Hence the clarifying video.
“My spiritual father in his pastoral counsel to me said nothing public, no public ministry, just Patreon. And the reason that he allowed for Patreon is because even he sees that there are so many people so many people that support me, that want to continue to support me and that still want to see me make content.
But at the same time, there’s also quite a few people as well that don’t want to see me make content. So what we all came up with something that I think would be most appropriate for everyone to be able to serve everyone is if I were to come back only on Patreon.
That way, all of the people that have supported me,that continue to support me, and that want to keep supporting me can support me there on Patreon. And and the people that don’t want to see me, the people that are scandalized by me (don’t have to see me) the people that that really don’t like me.”
He continues:
“For the foreseeable future, and maybe even permanently, I don’t know, but maybe even permanently, Voice of Reason content will be exclusively on Patreon.
Only Patreon. Nowhere else. Nothing on YouTube, nothing on Instagram, nothing on Tik Tok, nowhere. Only Patreon. So, the only place on the internet, the only place in the world where my content, all of my new content can be accessed is going to be on Patreon.”
Jurado presently has 617 paid members, giving between $5 and $25 a month.
