Charlie Kirk shooting sends shockwaves through US politics and churches

‘He was a man of God and just moments before he was assassinated, he had proclaimed that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Saviour,’ said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life.

The assassination of conservative organiser and provocateur Charlie Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Turmp, sent shockwaves through American political culture, including politically engaged Catholics.

Kirk was speaking at Utah Valley university, answering a question about gun violence, when he was shot in the neck.

“He was a man of God and just moments before he was assassinated, he had proclaimed that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Saviour,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, in an interview on EWTN News in Depth. “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.”

She said Kirk “was a huge learning advocate … He was always wanting to find out the best ways to save our country and to advance our faith.” She described him as “a joyful warrior”.

Kirk was an evangelical Christian and weaved conservative Christian themes into his political oratory. His wife, Erika, was baptised Catholic.

Appearing on Fox News, she said, “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.”

Kirk spoke at both the Oxford and Cambridge unions in May. Acknowledging the students were “certainly bright” he lamented their political and cultural outlooks.

He said that “at Oxbridge I found the dominant outlook to be a depressed and depressing near-nihilism. They were students who hardly cared their country has less free speech than 50 or 100 years ago. They were appalled that a person might think life begins at conception, but not that their own country is being steadily Islamicised.”

Kirk praised the Reform Party for its likeness to Trump’s Maga (Make America Great Again) movement, predicting, “The great turn in Britain is coming.”

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