This crucifix, in San Marcello, was carried through the city for days during the great plague of 1522. Because this crucifix had survived a massive fire it was deemed miraculous. A huge penitential procession went from the San Marcello to St. Peter’s Basilica. Accounts say that the procession lasted 16 days, 4-20 August (in the heat). The plague receded. When they returned to San Marcello, the plague was over.
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Hey Fathers! How about a clerical Guayabera shirt for the hot summer days?
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How people react to Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a Rorschach test. It shows you a lot about who they really are inside. pic.twitter.com/xIzm0gWbM6
— Patrick Madrid ?? (@patrickmadrid) September 13, 2025
A must watch! pic.twitter.com/fHB4e97KOL
— Sarah Malcangi (@MalcangiSarah) September 13, 2025
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Hello Fr. Z,
Would it be alright to have a t-shirt made that says “Charlie Kirk pray for us”? My son wanted to do that but I cautioned him that Charlie was not Catholic, though he is now…still…wouldn’t this be private devotion?
How people react to Charlie Kirk’s death is a tell… What if you’re numb and disgusted? I can’t shake the intuition that this was a government hit and they recruited (a la CIA) this kid to be a sleeper. The 180-degree turn he took certainly speaks to his radicalization by someone. The whole thing is too perfect, too orchestrated, too tidy. And the aftermath has been completely politicized and charged up millions of (wait for it) *potential voters*.
Someone took a look at the people closest to Trump who had the greatest political capital and they took the shot. They widowed a wife, orphaned children, lied to the world, and slaughtered a man — with the perfect “k*ll shot” — ON A LIVE FEED.
What does this accomplish for the conspirators if I’m correct in my assumption? It gets Trump in line (we can get someone close to you, so do what we say or your family is next); but it’s papered over with the huge turnout of (rightly) outraged Protestant Conservatives (who havent been supportive of the Republican Party as of late, what with all the Epstein stink and the cost of living sky-rocketing).
I don’t like any of it. I think it’s fake and grotesque. It’s puppeteering. Charlie Kirk and his family deserved better. May his soul rest in peace.
Tell me my diagnosis, Doc. But I’m not buying the “official story”. Something stinks here.
Along the same lines as the poster above…Father, can protestants be considered martyrs? Are we allowed to considered anyone a martyr? I mean even if a Catholic is martyred for the Faith can we presume that or do we have to wait for the Church to proclaim it? Sorry, if this is a rabbit hole but I’ve been wondering that and don’t know where to ask it.
I have unfortunately seen an ostensibly conservative, traditionally raised child become radicalized to the left as a young person. My own explanation is there’s some hole they tried to fill– maybe it was a neglectful parent, maybe it was just the awkwardness of the teen years. I don’t know but they found an explanation online. Fifty years ago they would’ve probably just suffered through, maybe smoking cigarettes behind the school or drinking on the weekends. Everyone wants to feel significant. So they go looking for a group that validates that. Even if the person is a loner. Online they can say here’s my group & who & where I belong. I think a little part of them wants to rebel also so instead of clinging harder to those values they were raised with they reject them out of a desire to prove those values don’t solve anything. I think that’s why a traditional kid might not embrace his or her faith. This is why I don’t believe in any grand conspiracy in the death of Charlie Kirk. These kids get online searching and evil finds them.
I’d like to imagine that the instant Charlie’s soul left his body God said you were going to Mass, you spoke highly of and honored Mary, you believed the Bible if you could would you choose the one, true faith? And Charlie said yes. There are those that think Charlie was on the path to becoming Catholic. God would obviously know that. So why permit his death? Because he didn’t need Charlie to live another 30-40 years to save his soul.
I think a t-shirt that says pray FOR Charlie Kirk is more appropriate. It opens the door to a conversation about praying for souls in purgatory. If he doesn’t need our prayers they will help another who needs them. Even good, holy Catholics we anticipate will someday be canonized we pray for until they are “in the process” of canonization.
That moment on the 10th was ultimately about Charlie and his soul. While people were running and screaming he was having his moment with God. He’s living a life hidden from us now. I do hope it’s in the presence of God.
Fr Z is that the crucifix that Pope Francis damaged by leaving it standing in the rain on Good Friday of that awful Covid year?
I’d suggest reading Jeff Childer’s Coffee & Covid’s analysis today of the accelerationism culture. It’s frightening.
@ maternalView
… And that’s the other side of it. Is it scarier that it’s a lone kid who was radicalized by the internet into doing something barbaric so that my mind immediately jumps to a conspiracy theory? “It couldn’t be true that this young generation have all gone mad, so it must mean it was a government op.”
My brain is so frustrated, either way.
Great comment. Ave Maria.
While Nazareth and Capernaum are in the current territory of the State of Israel (as Charlie Kirk said), Bethlehem is not. Bethlehem is in the West Bank which has been occupied by the State of Israel since 1967. The General Assembly of the United Nations has called for the end of the Israeli occupation numerous times.
As a foreigner seeing the Charlie Kirk situation from the outside in… it certainly comes across as… strange. The sudden explosiveness of the whole thing on both sides has largely exceeded that of Trump’s assasination attempt last year. Which is very suspicious to me. I think people will do well to remember that the internet, specially in social media sites, is chock-full of bots, many, many, MANY of which are operated by intelligence services of different countries to influence society and politics in other countries, the US included, to their own advantage.
In a more general note, I think we need to reacquire the habit of… letting things sink before reacting to them. Because that’s another thing the systems capitalize on: our sudden attention and need for immediate response and reaction to everything, even before we have a clear picture of the situation we are dealing with. And a reminder that rage and righteous anger are different things (and one is much more likely to indulge the first rather than practice the second if one is knee-jerk reacting).
(I also think we need to have a new conversation about what martyrdom means, because first it was St. Maximilian Kolbe, and then it was St. Edith Stein, and then it was St. Oscar Romero, and then it was the Coptic murdered by ISIS and now people are proclaiming martyrs victims of shootings which, as tragic as they were, would require an even further stretch of the concept of martyrdom, and when everyone is a martyr…)
Well said, Dantesque.