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Report: Charlie Kirk was ‘this close’ to becoming Catholic just prior to his death
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Report: Charlie Kirk was ‘this close’ to becoming Catholic just prior to his death

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Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. / Credit: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 19, 2025 / 12:02 pm (CNA).

Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk was reportedly strongly considering becoming Catholic just prior to his assassination, according to a bishop who spoke to him shortly before his killing. 

Robert Brennan, a Los Angeles-based writer and the brother of Fresno, California, Bishop Joseph Brennan, said in a Sept. 18 column in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper Angelus that Kirk had a “personal exchange” with the California prelate about a week before Kirk’s murder at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. 

The writer Brennan, who said Bishop Brennan gave him permission to share the story, wrote that Kirk had spoken to the prelate at a prayer breakfast in Visalia. The conservative activist “told the bishop about his Catholic wife and children and how he attended Mass with them.” 

Bishop Joseph Brennan of the Diocese of Fresno in California. Credit: Thank You (22 Millions+) views from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Bishop Joseph Brennan of the Diocese of Fresno in California. Credit: Thank You (22 Millions+) views from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kirk acknowledged “speculation” about his possible interest in becoming Catholic, Brennan wrote in Angelus; he subsequently told Bishop Brennan: “I’m this close” to converting. 

In his Angelus column Brennan pointed to a recent video Kirk made in which he acknowledged some “big disagreements” with Catholicism but claimed that Protestants “under-value” the Blessed Mother. 

“We don’t talk about Mary enough. We don’t venerate her enough,” Kirk said, arguing that Mary is “the solution” to “toxic feminism” in the U.S. 

“[H]ow fitting one of Charlie Kirk’s last videos was about the preeminent mediatrix of all time and space,” Robert Brennan wrote in Angelus. “In his own way he was reaching out to her, and now, I am convinced, she is returning the favor.”

Kirk was fatally shot while taking questions from audience members during a stop at Utah Valley University as part of his “American Comeback Tour.” He is survived by his wife, Erika Frantzve, and their 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.

Prominent Catholics around the world have joined in the chorus of voices mourning Kirk’s death in the days since he was killed. German Catholic Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller referred to Kirk this week as “a martyr for Jesus Christ” and condemned the “satanic celebration” of his death by some of his detractors.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action and a close friend of Kirk’s, said on Sept. 13 that the activist’s death “will be a turning point” for the country. 

And Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Kirk’s activism “restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans.”

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Faith, family and God’s mercy: Highlights from Erika Kirk’s TV address
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Faith, family and God’s mercy: Highlights from Erika Kirk’s TV address

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Vice President JD Vance (R) second lady Usha Vance (C) and Erika Kirk deplane Air Force Two while escorting the body of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. / Credit: Kirk, Eric Thayer/Getty Images

CNA Newsroom, Sep 13, 2025 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, vowed to continue her husband’s work Friday night during an impassioned and deeply personal televised address that focused on the importance of faith and family life.

Appearing on Fox News just two days after her husband was shot and killed by an assassin’s bullet, fired from a rooftop on the campus of Utah Valley University where he was holding an outdoor event, she spoke for more than 16 minutes, maintaining her composure as she stood at a podium in her husband’s podcast studio, beside his empty chair.

“I will never, ever have the words to describe the loss that I feel in my heart,” said Erika Kirk, the mother of two young children, ages 1 and 3.

“I honestly have no idea what any of this means,” she said. “I know that God does, but I don’t. But Charlie, baby, I know you do, too. So does our Lord.”

“The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said.

“They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God’s merciful love.”

Here are other highlights from her remarks:

She revealed that she had not yet told the couple’s 3-year-old daughter of her father’s death.

“When I got home last night, Gigi, our daughter, just ran into my arms. And I talked to her, and she said, ‘Mommy, I missed you.’ I said, ‘I missed you too, baby.’

“She goes, ‘Where’s daddy?’ She’s 3. I said, ‘Baby, daddy loves you so much. He’s on a work trip with Jesus, so he can afford your blueberry budget.'”

She talked about why her husband advocated so passionately for marriage and family life.

“Charlie always believed that God’s design for marriage in the family was absolutely amazing. And it is. It is. And it was the greatest joy of his life. And over and over, he would tell all these young people to come and find their future spouse, become wives and husbands and parents. And the reason why is because he wanted you all to experience what he had, and still has,” she said.

“He wanted everyone to bring heaven into this earth through love and joy that comes from raising a family. It’s beautiful. Charlie always said that if he ever ran for office —I know a lot of you asked if he ever was going to — but privately, he told me if he ever did run for office, that his top priority would be to revive the American family. That was his priority.

“One of Charlie’s favorite Bible verses was Ephesians 5 verse 25: ‘Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’

“My husband laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children. He showed the ultimate and true covenantal love,” she said.

Erika, who is a baptized Catholic, witnessed to the Christian faith she and her husband shared.

“Charlie always said that when he was gone, he, he wanted to be remembered for his courage and for his faith,” she said.

“And one of the final conversations that he had on this earth, my husband witnessed for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his Savior’s side, wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”

During the broadcast, Erika Kirk urged others to make faith central to their lives, as her husband had done.

“But most important of all, if you aren’t a member of a church, I beg you to join one, a Bible-believing church,” she said.

“Our battle is not simply a political one above all. It is spiritual. It is spiritual. The spiritual warfare is palpable. Charlie loved his Savior with all of his heart, and he wanted every one of you to know him, too. He wanted everyone to know that if they confess, if they confess the Lord Jesus Christ who rose from the dead, then they will be saved.

“Hear me when I say this. Nobody is ever too young to know the gospel. Nobody. Nobody is ever too young to get involved with saving this beautiful country, this country my husband loved and still loves. And nobody is ever too old, either.”

She vowed to continue Charlie’s work with Turning Point USA, the conservativve advocacy organization he founded, and said the campus speaking tour he had just embarked on would go on.

“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world. You have no idea,” she said.

“You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.

“To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die,” she said. “It won’t. I refuse to let that happen. It will not die.”

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Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins: Charlie Kirk ‘died a martyr’
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Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins: Charlie Kirk ‘died a martyr’

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Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. / Credit: “EWTN News in Depth”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 13, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10 at a Utah college campus, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action and a close friend of Kirk’s, said: “His death will be a turning point.”

In an interview with “EWTN News In Depth,” Hawkins called Kirk “a joyful warrior.” She pointed out: “He was a man of God and just moments before he was assassinated, he had proclaimed that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior. And he never shirked away from that, just like he never shirked away from any of the other political debates … I believe with my whole heart, he died a martyr.”

Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and campus activist, “truly enjoyed having conversations with those who disagreed with him and having the opportunity to change their minds,” Hawkins said. “He was a huge learning advocate … He was always wanting to find out the best ways to save our country and to advance our faith.”

“We work symbiotically on campuses to spread the good news of the Gospel, but then also spread the voice of reason, which Pope Benedict was very clear [about]. He wrote about how reason is God’s gift and when reason is abandoned, violence becomes the only remaining path … When people stop talking, when they disagree with each other, it only leads to violence.”

Hawkins highlighted Kirk’s mission to protect human life. Students for Life honored him in January at the National Pro-Life Summit with the Defender of Life Award “for his advocacy for life on college campuses.” 

Turning Point, Students for Life, and similar organizations that work to defend life “have become increasingly effective [in] winning back students,” Hawkins said, especially because of Kirk’s “ability to reach young men.” 

While the pro-life organizations have been “effective and things have started to shift in our country, it hasn’t shifted enough,” Hawkins said. “We still have a culture of death.” 

Manifestation of the ‘culture of death’

The day of Kirk’s death, Hawkins was speaking to students at the University of Montana. “I was on campus for two hours before Charlie was shot and every argument from the 150 pro-choice students who surrounded me … was: ‘Maybe it is a baby, maybe it is human, but I can still kill it because I want to. That’s a culture of death.”

“When I announced to them that my friend had been shot and we were trying to find updates on Charlie’s condition … they laughed.” 

“This is what a culture of death breeds. When you say it’s OK to kill innocent babies and that there should be no recourse [for] killing innocent, helpless babies who are the most innocent among us, this is what it leads to. This is why we say it’s a culture of death that must be defeated and this is why we can’t abandon the campuses right now,” Hawkins said. “Do we abandon violence or accept reason?”

Despite this tragedy, Hawkins said: “We have to stay on campuses, because we have to teach this generation, Gen Z, that violence isn’t acceptable.” She shared that her organizations will be going to “160 campuses this semester talking about [their] fall theme, which is ‘every human life matters.’ Charlie Kirk’s life matters.”

“We have to go now harder and louder than ever before because God’s gift of reason must prevail. That is the only way our mission survives this.”

Hawkins also asked people to pray for Kirk’s wife, Erika, and their young children. “I can’t even imagine the pain that Erika is going through,” Hawkins said. “To lose the love of her life, the father of her children, her rock, one that she loves so dearly, and Erika loves so fiercely. But she also loves the Lord.” 

“And so my prayer for her right now is that her faith prevails, and her faith carries her through this moment, and God grants her strength. She is strong enough to endure this. I would ask folks every morning when you wake up, pray for Erika. Pray for those two young children.”

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‘Triumph of the Heart’ tells powerful story of St. Maximilian Kolbe
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‘Triumph of the Heart’ tells powerful story of St. Maximilian Kolbe

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From left to right: Actor Marcin Kwaśny as Maximilian Kolbe and Christopher Sherwood as Karl Fritzsch in “Triumph of the Heart.” / Credit: Triumph of the Heart movie/Sherwood Fellows

CNA Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Anthony D’Ambrosio grew up Catholic and always viewed his faith as one of the most important aspects of his life — even entering seminary for a brief period of time. However, he felt called to leave seminary and go into youth ministry. He fell in love and was about to get engaged when he was diagnosed with a life-altering medical condition — a chronic mold infection with a major symptom being severe and even life-threatening insomnia.

D’Ambrosio’s relationship ended, he couldn’t maintain a job, and his faith unraveled. It was during the sleepless nights that he began to discover the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, which led to creating a movie about the saint — “Triumph of the Heart.” It will be released in theaters on Sept. 12.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar, priest, and martyr who volunteered to die in place of another man in the German death camp of Auschwitz. Kolbe spent the last 14 days of his life in a starvation bunker alongside nine other men. “Triumph of the Heart” focuses on Kolbe’s last days on earth spent in the starvation bunker.

While writing the film, D’Ambrosio began to see his own battle with insomnia as “being a bit of a stand-in for starvation,” he told CNA in an interview. The fact that Kolbe was also able to accompany three other men “to that miracle of staying alive for 14 days without food or water with him” was also meaningful for D’Ambrosio because “I knew that if Kolbe could have helped men in that situation to find a reason to live, that he could help me to find a reason to live.”

As D’Ambrosio spent more and more time with Kolbe’s story, he began to “see what true sanctity looked like, what love looked like.”

“This idea that he had volunteered to take on the suffering of these men in order to be with them — that really began to melt my own heart and to open me back up to God’s presence,” he added.

It was then that D’Ambrosio began his journey to create the film. He began to write the script, pilgrimaged several times to Poland to learn more about Kolbe, lived with the Franciscan friars in Poland, studied his story with the librarian who handles his archives, and ultimately worked with an American crew and partnered with Poles to tell the martyr’s story.

A portrayal seen in "Triumph of the Heart" of Maximilian Kolbe, along with the other men, in the starvation bunker. Credit: Triumph of the Heart movie/Sherwood Fellows
A portrayal seen in “Triumph of the Heart” of Maximilian Kolbe, along with the other men, in the starvation bunker. Credit: Triumph of the Heart movie/Sherwood Fellows

Despite facing numerous challenges while making the film, D’Ambrosio said the most beautiful aspect was seeing “how generous the Catholic world has been.”

“Triumph of the Heart” was an entirely crowdfunded movie — meaning all production costs were covered thanks to donations from individuals.

D’Ambrosio shared that not only did everyday Catholics generously donate financially, but they also donated airline miles for the crew to be able to travel and many volunteered to go to Poland on their own dime to help with the production while the team was there for three months filming.

“I mean the whole movie is just a compilation of the stories of people who have sacrificed immensely in order to tell the story,” D’Ambrosio said.

When reflecting on the life and story of Kolbe, D’Ambrosio said it serves as a great reminder to Catholics that “when everything is hopeless, really, truly, love has the power to overcome darkness and to change the world.”

“The choice to have to maintain love and hope and faith in the face of darkness is the most powerful expression of God’s love and presence that any person can offer the world,” he added.

Despite having his life’s work destroyed by the Nazis and witness his country of Poland be conquered and destroyed by the Germans, Kolbe maintained his faith, and for D’Ambrosio “that has been the part of his life that has resounded the most throughout history and throughout time.”

“I think for anybody that is struggling in any way in their lives right now, they can look at his suffering and look at the fruit of it and make sense in many ways — maybe not make sense but they can like find a balm and find a compass for their own action the way that I did,” he said.

D’Ambrosio emphasized that the movie is primarily about hope and said he finds it “very apropos that this year was declared to be a Jubilee of Hope and that somehow Kolbe’s movie and his story is coming out in the jubilee year.”

The filmmaker said he hopes viewers “will come away with this catharsis — with this feeling of all of that was worth it if that’s what heaven is like.”

“I think that the way that the movie leaves people is like a little promise of ‘Hey, it’s going to be OK. The place we’re going is better and all of the suffering and trials and tribulations that you go through here now and all the crosses that you bear, they will be fully redeemed and you will be completely filled up and made new.’”

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Jimmy Lai’s son says his father is ‘still fighting’ amid ongoing trial
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Jimmy Lai’s son says his father is ‘still fighting’ amid ongoing trial

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Sebastien Lai, son of imprisoned free speech advocate Jimmy Lai, speaks on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Aug. 21, 2025. / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 22, 2025 / 13:38 pm (CNA).

Sebastien Lai, son of imprisoned Hong Kong democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, said this week his father is “still fighting” and “holding on” as closing arguments continue in his lengthy national security trial.

Jimmy Lai, the Catholic billionaire, human rights activist, and founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has been on trial since 2023 in Hong Kong for allegations of colluding with foreign forces under a national security law put in effect by the communist-controlled Chinese government. He faces a life sentence if found guilty. 

“It’s a textbook example of a show trial, of the weaponization of the legal system,” Sebastien told EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Thursday.

“He’s not going to see a fair trial … It’s an absolute kangoo trial.”

Sebastien said the evidence brought against his father “all turned out to be completely untrue,” adding: “My father is in prison because of his journalism and because of his courage. Because he stayed to defend his people, because he dared to campaign for democracy and for human rights in Hong Kong. And that didn’t sit well with the Hong Kong government.”

While closing arguments began on Aug. 18, they continue to be postponed. Sebastien said the issue is that “the national security law is so broad,” explaining that the “rule of law” in Hong Kong, which was once fairly enforced, “no longer holds.”

“Instead of the rule of law, it’s the rule of men,” he said. “My father got more than a year in maximum security prison in solitary confinement on one of the sentences, which was for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a Tiananmen Square massacre vigil.”

People can see it is “not just ridiculous, but how horrible it is to give someone a jail sentence over commemorating people who died, [but] who died for freedom and democracy in China.”

While “it’s an open trial” and people in Hong Kong can follow what is happening, “there’s no free press,” Sebastien said. “People are going to jail for liking social media posts or even writing on bathroom toilets … But foreign journalists can still go and local journalists can still cover parts of it. There’s at least that element of it.”

“My father said it best … when he was giving testimony: ‘My job as a journalist, as a publisher, is to hold a torch to the truth.’” 

Call for international support 

As leaders around the world rally to support Jimmy, Sebastien said his family is “incredibly grateful” for the help but that he thinks “it’s time to put action” behind words. 

President Donald Trump recently vowed to do everything he can to bring about Jimmy’s release.

“The fact that [Trump] is still keeping my father’s case close to heart is something that I’m incredibly grateful for,” he said.

“The U.S. government is much more effective and much stronger in terms of liberating people around the world. Now that both [the U.K. and U.S.] governments are so supportive, it gives us a lot of hope as a family, but … I think the U.K. government can do more to free my father,” he said.

“But I think we are in a situation now where my father dying in jail is not beneficial for any party. It’s not beneficial for Hong Kong. It’s not beneficial for China. It’s obviously not beneficial for anybody who enjoys freedom.” Jimmy would “essentially act as a martyr if he died in prison,” Sebastien said. 

Jimmy’s health concerns

“His health is not good,” Sebastien continued. “From my understanding, my father is much skinnier and much weaker, but still strong in spirit and still strong in mind.”

The Chinese government is “always trying to essentially break his spirit with all these multiple show trials. The government tells him that nobody cares about him and that he’s going to die for nothing.”

In solitary confinement, where Jimmy is most of the time, he is “in a little concrete cell, and there’s no air conditioning, so he bakes under the sun … never mind his diabetes,” the younger Lai said. Recently, Jimmy’s lawyers also shared that he is suffering from heart palpitations in prison.

As the trial continues, Sebastien said a statement his father made is what gives him hope: “‘The truth will come out in the kingdom of God, and that is good enough for me.’”

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