Charlie Kirk was 'close' to becoming a Catholic as he meditated on Virgin Mary as solution to ‘toxic feminism’

The assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk was reportedly close to becoming a Catholic at the time of his death, which included him considering the Virgin Mary as a solution to “toxic feminism” in the United States.

Robert Brennan, a Los Angeles-based writer and the brother of Bishop Joseph Brenna of Fresno, California, has written about how Kirk had a “personal exchange” with the Californian prelate about a week before the 31-year-old CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA was killed at Utah Valley University on 10 September, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

In a 18 September column for Angelus, the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, Robert Brennan wrote that Kirk had spoken to his bishop brother at a prayer breakfast, telling the prelate “about his Catholic wife and children and how he attended Mass with them”.

Kirk had acknowledged “speculation” about his interest in becoming Catholic and told Bishop Brennan: “I’m this close” to converting, Robert Brennan wrote in Angelus.

Brennan notes that his brother had given him permission to share the story. He also highlights a recent video made by Kirk, in which while the evangelical Christian acknowledged some “big disagreements” with Catholicism, he also discussed how Protestants “under-value” the Virgin Mary.

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

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

The murder of Kirk has sent shockwaves throughout the US and around the world. Many people who had previously never heard of Kirk have suddenly found themselves belatedly becoming fans of the charismatic activist, whom some argue would have one day run for US president.

Prominent Catholics around the world have spoken out in praise of Kirk since he was killed by an assassin's single bullet. German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller this week described Kirk as “a martyr for Jesus Christ” while condemning the “satanic celebration” of his death by some of his detractors.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has praised Kirk as a “modern-day Saint Paul” and described the assassinated conservative activist as a “hero” and “evangelist".

Dolan’s comments were made the same day he published a comment article in the NewYork Post pleading for Americans to “make peace” in the wake of the shooting and to address the issue of whether new forms of media, especially social media, “engender violence in our hearts, minds, and souls”.

At the end of the video in which Kirk discusses the Virgin Mary, he finishes by noting that while he has a lot of time for and is impressed by Catholics, he nevertheless still has three major "theological disagreements" with Catholicism which would prevent him from "entering the faith".

These issues he lists as the "infallibility of the Pope" along with "the whole process and idea of the Vatican", "Mariology" and the idea that the Virgin Mary was without sin, and Transubstantiation.

A memorial service for Kirk, which will be open to the public, is planned for Sunday, 21 September, starting at 1 p.m. (EST), in State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. President Donald Trump is expected to attend.

RELATED: Cardinal Dolan compares Charlie Kirk to Saint Paul

Photo: A poster at a makeshift memorial for Charlie Kirk outside the headquarters of Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona, 19 September 2025. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.)

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