Rafael Cruz, the father of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, just loves to talk, to preach, and to call the President of the United States a “socialist” and the “village idiot.” He is perhaps the only person more totally over the top and certifiably bonkers than Senator Cruz himself.
Now it turns out he also likes to lie about his so-called credentials as a “minister.”
If you don’t know Pastor Cruz’s back story, here are the highlights: He was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States some 55 years ago. He fought in the Cuban revolution and was imprisoned and tortured. He fled to Texas penniless, unable to speak a single word of English.
And now he’s a pastor at a Dallas church and also serves as the Director of Purifying Fire Ministries in the U.S., Mexico, and Central America.
This much can be verified. (Or can it? More on that later.) But there are some notable discrepancies in other parts of his resume.
Here’s what we know about Purifying Fire Ministries: It went belly up in 2014. Also, Cruz had no legal right to associate himself with Purifying Fire, which was owned by Suzanne Hinn, the wife of faith healer Benny Hinn.
Also, when he says he’s a pastor at church in Dallas, turns out there is no real church, but the Cruz for President campaign attempts to explain this by saying:
“You don’t have to have a church to be a pastor.”
Cruz also claims to have studied theology at Advanced Bible College (or Advance Bible College). But neither college appears to exist. Perhaps they’re figments of his vivid imagination.
Rafael Cruz also likes to brag that he runs a translation company. But upon further inspection, his company, Kingdom Translation Services Inc. has a billing address in an apartment complex in a Dallas suburb. It has no working website or phone number. The Cruz campaign shed some light on this with a statement they issued:
“It is Rev. Cruz’s one-man translation service.”
So, to sum up: Rafael Cruz is probably not really a minister, has lied about almost everything he says about himself, and thinks his son will be President of the United States.
In other words, he’s about as delusional as you can get and still be allowed to walk the streets.
Featured image by Gage Skidmore for Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
