Candace Owens, who converted to Romanism years ago, claimed in a September 11 podcast that Charlie Kirk was praying the Rosary and attending Roman Catholic Mass. She noted that she encouraged him to take the last step and become a Romanist. He’s too smart to be Protestant, she quipped. Her video has since been removed from YouTube, but a clip is still available here. Here’s the quote:
“Um, [he] was definitely on the brink of changing some of his perspectives. And I can tell you factually Charlie was praying the Rosary. Charlie was going to Mass. One of my last conversations with Charlie was me joking with him, saying, just make the last step, okay? You are—uh, I said specifically, you’re too smart to be a Protestant. Just take the last step, Charlie. He says, ha ha, you’re speaking about, uh, Mary. And typically when those steps start taking place, you stop referring to yourself, as I did, as a Judeo-Christian.”
Other Romanists have made similar posts. Consider this YouTube short from a Romanist theologian, claiming “it could have been” that Kirk might have become a Romanist, had he not been murdered. The video also shows his widow, Erika Kirk, holding what appears to be a cross necklace, perhaps her dead husband’s necklace, and the Romanist narrator says “some are saying that she’s holding up a Rosary.”
The Rosary, for those who are curious, is a series of beads on a string, with a cross, used by Romanists to lead them through prayers to Mary, demonstrating that Romanism in fact idolatrously ascribes qualities of Deity to Mary, the mother of our Lord. The Mass is Rome’s disordered understanding of the Lord’s Supper, whereby they claim to offer a “propitiatory sacrifice” to God, transform the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, and worship the elements themselves as Christ’s body, soul, and divinity. Rome’s claims about the Rosary and Mass are found nowhere in Scripture, and each serves as substantial proof that Rome long ago abandoned the Apostolic Gospel. It is an apostate church.
Rome’s aberrations aside, Candace Owens represents a group of Romanists who are claiming Charlie Kirk as their own. His blood had hardly dried. His body had hardly cooled. Less than a day after his murder and two days before his widow made a public statement, Romanists were dancing on his coffin claiming he was one of their own. It was distasteful. It was insensitive. It was opportunistic. It was grotesque.
If indeed Kirk was moving towards Romanism, it is his wife’s story to tell, not Candace Owens’ or anybody else’s. Even so, I have my doubts. He attended a Protestant church. Everything he said publicly, as far as I can tell, was consistent with Protestantism. He even recently said, in a podcast, that he was slowly reading Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears’ 2010 book, Doctrine, which argues for a Calvinistic understanding of salvation. You can call Mark Driscoll many things, but you can’t accuse him of being Romanist. Kirk gave every indication publicly of believing and preaching the biblical Gospel of justification by faith alone, and nothing he said, as far as I can tell, deviated from that.
If Candace Owens was a consistent Romanist, instead of having a cheeky smile, pointing to a feather in her hat and a scalp on her belt, suggesting Kirk was her own almost-convert, she should be honest enough to admit that her own church, the Roman Catholic Church, teaches that Charlie Kirk is right now burning in hell without hope.
The official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that, in order to be saved, it is necessary to submit to the Pope, which Charlie Kirk, at the time of his death, had not yet done.
“Furthermore we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, ex cathedra, Unam Sanctam, 1302 AD)
If Owens were a consistent Romanist, she would need to hold up Charlie as an example of what not to be. Instead of smiling, less than 24 hours after his death, declaring that he was on his way to Rome, she should have been weeping, declaring that he was tragically in hell. He hadn’t come to Rome soon enough.
While not submitting to the Pope, Charlie Kirk had never undergone Romanist baptism, which means, according to Rome, he died in the state of original sin and mortal sin, and he went straight to hell where he will remain suffering forever:
“Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, statement 1992)
“Moreover, the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin only, descend immediately into hell but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Council of Florence, 1438–1445 AD)
The Romanists who are parading around Kirk’s grave, hailing him as one of their own, are disingenuous snakes. With their mouths, they say, “He was on his way to Rome. He was one of ours.” In their catechisms they teach, “He burns in hell.”
“His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.” (Psalm 55:21)
The Church of Rome is a church of lies. She lies about history. She lies about theology. She lies about Scripture. Apparently, her apologists are even willing to misrepresent their dead friends.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel that Charlie Kirk preached over and again to millions of people. It is the pure offer of certain hope. It is the exaltation of Jesus Christ as the only substitute for sin. It is the heralding of His cross as the full payment for sin. It is the declaration that His work is complete because He is forever risen. That is the hope of the Gospel, and that is the message I heard Charlie Kirk preach.
