Charlie Kirk's widow Erika forgives her husband's alleged killer

- Kate Scanlon (OSV News)

Among those attending the funeral of her slain husband, Charlie Kirk, were U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His wife, Erika, in front of thousands of people, said she forgave the alleged killer. "The answer, as we know from the Gospel, is love." 

According to recent reports, Erika was raised in a Catholic family, and Charlie, her husband, was an evangelical Christian.

Erika Kirk, who was named executive director of Turning Point USA after her husband's Sept. 10 murder, said she felt "a level of anguish I didn't even know existed," but that "God's love continued to reveal itself to me in the days that followed."

"After Charlie's murder, we saw no violence, no riots, no revolution," she said. "Instead, we saw what my husband always longed to see in this country. We saw a revival."

Erika Kirk urged attendees to embrace what she called a Christian understanding of "true manhood" because she said her husband, an evangelical Christian, had a passion for reaching "lost children."

'Be a leader worth following'.

"Please be a leader worthy of being followed," he said. "Your wife is not your servant, your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh, working together for the glory of God."

She also urged women to "be virtuous." Her husband, she said, "died with an incomplete work, but not with unfinished business." "He wanted to save young people, like the one whose life he took," Erika said.

He added: "To that man, I forgive him." "The answer to hatred is not hatred," he said. "The answer, as we know from the Gospel, is love. It is always love."

Kirk "did not hate his opponents."

In his remarks, Donald Trump appeared to refer to Erika Kirk's comments, saying that Kirk "didn't hate her opponents. He wanted what was best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie: I hate my opponent and I don't want what's best for him."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Erika, but now, Erika, you can talk to me and the whole group, and maybe they can convince me that that's not right," he said.

Vance said, "Our entire administration is here, but not just because we loved Charlie as a friend - although we did - but because we know we wouldn't be here without him. He built an organization that transformed the balance of our politics."

Links to the president 

Charlie Kirk was an "influential figure" in his own election. So revealed President Donald Trump at a memorial service for the Turning Point USA founder and conservative activist on Sept. 21 at State Farm Stadium in Arizona. "None of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither will history," Trump stated.

"Charlie used to call me the night before a major event on the other side of the country and ask me, 'Do you think you could come speak at the event the next day?" said Trump. "I'd say, 'Charlie ... I'm the president of the U.S. Do you want me to fly four hours?' And, you know, sometimes I did.'"

Trump also joked at one point that Kirk "was one of the first people to tell me about a man from Ohio named JD Vance, have you ever heard of him?" Vance called Kirk "a hero to the United States of America and a martyr for the Christian faith."

Lone shooter

Authorities identified and arrested a suspect in the Kirk shooting. Vance and other Trump administration officials previously suggested they would seek to target what the vice president called "left-wing extremism" after Kirk's killing. Although law enforcement officials have said they believe the shooter acted alone.

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Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her at @kgscanlon.

This information was originally published in OSV News. You can consult it here.

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