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 the callous response of pro-choice students at the University of Montana when I told them my friend Charlie Kirk had been shot.
It was horrific. I share this because evil must be exposed in our nation, now more than ever. We may be at one of the lowest points in our… pic.twitter.com/1QFpG754AX
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) September 11, 2025
“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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The children in Minnesota are martyrs for Christ. We have thousands of recent martyrs all over the world.
Political movements are not Christ. Being murdered on a debate stage after throwing MAGA hats to the crowd does not make someone a martyr for Christ. The assassination of Mr. Kirk was not the Dialogues of the Carmelites.
How on earth did these young people get raised?!!!!!! Were they raised by wolves?!
What kind of parents did they have, who apparently didn’t even teach them to respect the DEAD, even if they disagreed with someone who died!
And their schoolteachers and professors?!–did/do any of these teachers rebuke students who make fun of others and demand that they apologize and actually mean it?!
When my daughters were still in a public school, I was picking them up one day (back when parents were still allowed to enter the school building to pick up their children), and I saw an older boy (5th grade) kicking a kindergartener’s books down the hall and laughing at him. The poor little boy was trying not to cry as he kept running and reaching to get his books–and in the meantime, the teachers (really?!) were just standing there, chatting with each other and even watching the two kids, but not helping the little one or chastising the older, bigger one.
My girls were staring, wide-eyed, too.
Finally, I had had enough. I stepped in front of the bully and said in a loud voice, “SHAME ON YOU! Picking on a younger child who can’t defend himself! SHAME!” And then I told him to pick up that child’s books and hand them to him and apologize right now!
The big boy was obviously terrified, and he quickly picked up the little boy’s books, mumbled a quick “sorry”, and backed away. In the meantime, the little boy was staring at me as though I was an angel.
I only wish I had turned to the teachers and said, “SHAME ON YOU! You don’t deserve to teach and you don’t deserve the high salary and all the benefits that we taxpayers give you in return for your supposedly teaching our most precious resources–our beautiful children!” But I didn’t say that and I regret that I didn’t speak up. The next year, our daughters were attending a private country day school, where respect was the rule for everyone and they actually received a good education.
And IMO, most public schools and teachers are a lost cause today and do our children more harm than good. I apologize to any “good” public teachers who are reading this, and wish you good luck and God help you to survive in your lion’s den.