Divisive, dangerous and provocative – that’s how some in the media described American activist Charlie Kirk, after he was shot dead in Utah just days ago. “The answers he gave were astonishing!” said one Sky TV commentator, who cited his “outlandish” pro-life position and Kirk’s “dislike of abortion” – as if killing a child in the womb, even your own grandchild conceived in rape, was something that could be “liked”.
Kirk was a gifted speaker with a sharp intellect and this made him a formidable debater in the public square. Yes, sometimes his language, and his views, were unpalatable. But this conservative man, a married father of two, was a practising Christian, who was willing to die for his creed. And some of his views have been twisted and distorted.
I’ve been pondering what the modern media might have said about Christ in the days after his crucifixion. Would we have heard words such as “divisive, dangerous and provocative”? Would pundits have picked over Christ’s “hard teaching” on marriage and divorce? What about the company Jesus kept, the kind of followers he attracted?
“Christ came to divide!’ one headline might have screamed – backed up with this quote taken of context: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.”
Let’s face it. Division is generally not considered a good thing. And in the culture wars, opinions can get you cancelled, arrested or killed. The co-creator of the Father Ted series, Irish writer Graham Linehan has ended up in court in his bitter battle against trans ideology. On September 1, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow airport over three tweets.
But division can be useful: it helps us to clarify our values, to unite around the good, and confront evil. So important in an era of demonic confusion, when the evil of abortion is actually declared “good” and “just”. How many so-called intellectuals and others have confused good with evil by rejoicing at Kirk’s murder, incapable of separating his words from his humanity?
Division can also expose the truth, if we allow ourselves the freedom to debate ideas. “The Truth will set you free,” Jesus tells us in John 8:31.
But we also know that before it frees, the truth disturbs, divides and provokes.
Ideas
Ultimately Jesus was killed off because he threatened the status quo; his ideas were objectionable to the political elite and their followers. Christ, who is Truth itself, brought teachings that were “hard”, outlandish, objectionable, counter-cultural. And, no one was fit to debate him.
Kirk demolished his opponents in debates and those who could not silence him have misrepresented him. Several high profile people have apologised for repeating the lie that Kirk called for gay people to be stoned.
I read online that Kirk had claimed the Civil Rights in America was a mistake. What he actually said was the Civil Rights Act was passed with “good intentions” but was now being used by government to stifle free speech.
Kirk passionately defended the US constitutional Second Amendment and the right to bear arms – wrongly in my view. Yet guns were not his weapon of choice; words and reason were his artillery. And he was murdered by someone with perhaps an easily exhausted mind, and easy access to a gun, someone who could not tolerate the idea that men and women cannot change biology. That’s the truth that those who spout transgender ideology cannot face, an ideology that the alleged assassin was seemingly entwined in.
“Ideas are more powerful than guns,” is a quote often attributed, perhaps falsely, to the murderous Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. “We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”
Our biggest division these days is really between truth and lies”
It was not enemies with guns, but men with stones, that Christ faced down. Some had the grace to drop their stones when his words forced them to face the truth about themselves. Others, with stony hearts, bided their time and plotted to silence him through his brutal execution. Charlie Kirk was prepared to let his enemies have guns and ideas, and it has cost him his life.
“Speak the truth,” he said. “Regardless of the cost.”
These days we frame our divisions between far left and far right, with little clarity about what these terms mean. Our biggest division these days is really between truth and lies.
Charlie Kirk had the courage of his convictions. How many of us have that? Too many of us Catholics, bishops, priests, and laity, charged with the truth, bite our tongue rather than speak, because it might cause offence and it might cost us: Christ was crucified, Paul was stoned and beaten, and ultimately, along with all the apostles, bar John, brutally executed. But what is the point of our faith without the cross of passionate suffering? Lukewarm indifferentism is far more dangerous for our souls.
As a practising Christian, Charlie Kirk posted on X three days before his death: “Christ defeated death so you can live.”
How appropriate that Erika, his Catholic widow, held up a cross through the car window as his body was transported from Utah. He will be laid to rest this weekend, in a Christian service, where we will be reminded of the triumph of the cross: good over evil, hope over despair, faith over doubt, truth over lies, freedom over tyranny, joy over sorrow and life
over death.
***
Dungiven iconographer, Patrick McMacken, was among 150 pilgrims who took part in a two-day ‘Walk The Cross’ event at the weekend. He walked the 33km from St Patrick’s Church, Saul, Co. Down, with around 150 pilgrims – and brought St Patrick’s statue along the route towards Belfast. “The laity want to get out and show their faith,” he said. It was a small but fervent remnant, with rosaries, prayed all along the way. “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my birthday,” said Charmaine Jaine, who was visiting Belfast cousins on a trip from Indiana.
The joy was still palpable on day two as hundreds took part in a Eucharistic procession from St Michael The Archangel, Belfast, along the Falls Road to St Peter’s Cathedral. “The spirit is very strong in this country right now,” said organiser Anto Crossey. “The cross is the antidote to pain and suffering if we unite our personal cross with the cross of Jesus.”
***
Hope in the cathedral
Is hope lost?” is a lyric from one of Elvis Costello’s biggest hits. The tune’s title has now been co-opted for a new mural in St Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, called Peace, Love and Understanding. The mural was in fact inspired by Our Lady of Knock who brought hope in a time of distress – a hope that millions of Irish immigrants carried to America. This Sunday’s dedication mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Dolan to officially launch the largest ever piece of artwork commissioned by the cathedral.
The work, by artist Adam Cvijanovic, is 25ft high and stretches across three walls. It’s a vision of the sacred and the secular. It features figures from the Knock apparition as well as other heavenly or historic figures: former New York Governor, Al Smith, a prominent Catholic, is portrayed, as is St Kateri Tekakwitha, born into a Mohawk family in 1656.
Tyrone-born John Hughes, the first Archbishop of New York, also features. The Irish singer-songwriter Dana is set to sing her song for St Patrick, Light the Fire, as well as Lady of Knock, the hymn she penned with her husband Damien Scallon about the apparition of 1879.
“Yes, I’m going to America,” Dana told me. “I just think what is happening there is so important for Catholics in America and also Catholics here. To be reminded of our faith journeys and the people who went there – all they had was their faith. They didn’t have a penny – they just had their faith!”
In my own experience, I have increasingly found that when faith is all you have, it is all you need.
Charlie Kirk and the deadly divide in our culture
Divisive, dangerous and provocative – that’s how some in the media described American activist Charlie Kirk, after he was shot dead in Utah just days ago. “The answers he gave were astonishing!” said one Sky TV commentator, who cited his “outlandish” pro-life position and Kirk’s “dislike of abortion” – as if killing a child in the womb, even your own grandchild conceived in rape, was something that could be “liked”.
Kirk was a gifted speaker with a sharp intellect and this made him a formidable debater in the public square. Yes, sometimes his language, and his views, were unpalatable. But this conservative man, a married father of two, was a practising Christian, who was willing to die for his creed. And some of his views have been twisted and distorted.
I’ve been pondering what the modern media might have said about Christ in the days after his crucifixion. Would we have heard words such as “divisive, dangerous and provocative”? Would pundits have picked over Christ’s “hard teaching” on marriage and divorce? What about the company Jesus kept, the kind of followers he attracted?
“Christ came to divide!’ one headline might have screamed – backed up with this quote taken of context: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.”
Let’s face it. Division is generally not considered a good thing. And in the culture wars, opinions can get you cancelled, arrested or killed. The co-creator of the Father Ted series, Irish writer Graham Linehan has ended up in court in his bitter battle against trans ideology. On September 1, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow airport over three tweets.
But division can be useful: it helps us to clarify our values, to unite around the good, and confront evil. So important in an era of demonic confusion, when the evil of abortion is actually declared “good” and “just”. How many so-called intellectuals and others have confused good with evil by rejoicing at Kirk’s murder, incapable of separating his words from his humanity?
Division can also expose the truth, if we allow ourselves the freedom to debate ideas. “The Truth will set you free,” Jesus tells us in John 8:31.
But we also know that before it frees, the truth disturbs, divides and provokes.
Ideas
Ultimately Jesus was killed off because he threatened the status quo; his ideas were objectionable to the political elite and their followers. Christ, who is Truth itself, brought teachings that were “hard”, outlandish, objectionable, counter-cultural. And, no one was fit to debate him.
Kirk demolished his opponents in debates and those who could not silence him have misrepresented him. Several high profile people have apologised for repeating the lie that Kirk called for gay people to be stoned.
I read online that Kirk had claimed the Civil Rights in America was a mistake. What he actually said was the Civil Rights Act was passed with “good intentions” but was now being used by government to stifle free speech.
Kirk passionately defended the US constitutional Second Amendment and the right to bear arms – wrongly in my view. Yet guns were not his weapon of choice; words and reason were his artillery. And he was murdered by someone with perhaps an easily exhausted mind, and easy access to a gun, someone who could not tolerate the idea that men and women cannot change biology. That’s the truth that those who spout transgender ideology cannot face, an ideology that the alleged assassin was seemingly entwined in.
“Ideas are more powerful than guns,” is a quote often attributed, perhaps falsely, to the murderous Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. “We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”
It was not enemies with guns, but men with stones, that Christ faced down. Some had the grace to drop their stones when his words forced them to face the truth about themselves. Others, with stony hearts, bided their time and plotted to silence him through his brutal execution. Charlie Kirk was prepared to let his enemies have guns and ideas, and it has cost him his life.
“Speak the truth,” he said. “Regardless of the cost.”
These days we frame our divisions between far left and far right, with little clarity about what these terms mean. Our biggest division these days is really between truth and lies.
Charlie Kirk had the courage of his convictions. How many of us have that? Too many of us Catholics, bishops, priests, and laity, charged with the truth, bite our tongue rather than speak, because it might cause offence and it might cost us: Christ was crucified, Paul was stoned and beaten, and ultimately, along with all the apostles, bar John, brutally executed. But what is the point of our faith without the cross of passionate suffering? Lukewarm indifferentism is far more dangerous for our souls.
As a practising Christian, Charlie Kirk posted on X three days before his death: “Christ defeated death so you can live.”
How appropriate that Erika, his Catholic widow, held up a cross through the car window as his body was transported from Utah. He will be laid to rest this weekend, in a Christian service, where we will be reminded of the triumph of the cross: good over evil, hope over despair, faith over doubt, truth over lies, freedom over tyranny, joy over sorrow and life
over death.
***
Dungiven iconographer, Patrick McMacken, was among 150 pilgrims who took part in a two-day ‘Walk The Cross’ event at the weekend. He walked the 33km from St Patrick’s Church, Saul, Co. Down, with around 150 pilgrims – and brought St Patrick’s statue along the route towards Belfast. “The laity want to get out and show their faith,” he said. It was a small but fervent remnant, with rosaries, prayed all along the way. “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my birthday,” said Charmaine Jaine, who was visiting Belfast cousins on a trip from Indiana.
The joy was still palpable on day two as hundreds took part in a Eucharistic procession from St Michael The Archangel, Belfast, along the Falls Road to St Peter’s Cathedral. “The spirit is very strong in this country right now,” said organiser Anto Crossey. “The cross is the antidote to pain and suffering if we unite our personal cross with the cross of Jesus.”
***
Hope in the cathedral
Is hope lost?” is a lyric from one of Elvis Costello’s biggest hits. The tune’s title has now been co-opted for a new mural in St Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, called Peace, Love and Understanding. The mural was in fact inspired by Our Lady of Knock who brought hope in a time of distress – a hope that millions of Irish immigrants carried to America. This Sunday’s dedication mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Dolan to officially launch the largest ever piece of artwork commissioned by the cathedral.
The work, by artist Adam Cvijanovic, is 25ft high and stretches across three walls. It’s a vision of the sacred and the secular. It features figures from the Knock apparition as well as other heavenly or historic figures: former New York Governor, Al Smith, a prominent Catholic, is portrayed, as is St Kateri Tekakwitha, born into a Mohawk family in 1656.
Tyrone-born John Hughes, the first Archbishop of New York, also features. The Irish singer-songwriter Dana is set to sing her song for St Patrick, Light the Fire, as well as Lady of Knock, the hymn she penned with her husband Damien Scallon about the apparition of 1879.
“Yes, I’m going to America,” Dana told me. “I just think what is happening there is so important for Catholics in America and also Catholics here. To be reminded of our faith journeys and the people who went there – all they had was their faith. They didn’t have a penny – they just had their faith!”
In my own experience, I have increasingly found that when faith is all you have, it is all you need.
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