Murder of Charlie Kirk drives greater assistance to Mass in US universities.

In what some call “the Charlie Kirk effect”, people throughout the country, including many university students who normally do not go to church, have decided to attend Mass since the murder of conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk last week.

Matt Zerrusen, co -founder of Newman Ministrya non -profit Catholic organization that works in some 250 universities throughout the United States, told CNA – an English assistance of Ewtn News – that in recent days he has talked with leaders of the Catholic University Pastoral throughout the country, and “everyone has told me that more people have seen more people” and many people “who had never seen before”.

“I have not talked to anyone who has not seen an increase in mass assistance. Some schools report 15%increases,” said Zerrusen.

He also pointed out that many more university students are asking for spiritual direction. “Many people ask: ‘What do I do?’, ‘What is evil?’,

A priest of a great state university in the northeast of the country told Zerrusen that, during the weekend, he spoke with 15 young people who had never seen before and who looked for him to ask for advice of faith.

Zerrusen said that this spiritual “revival”, intensified by Kirk’s death, joins one that had already been observing for months.

He pointed out, for example, that more than 400 students from Texas A&M University in College Station are attending the classes of the Christian initiation of adults at the St. Mary’s Catholic Center, near the campus.

Users on social networks say that Kirk inspired them to go to church

Since Kirk’s death, which occurred on September 10, platforms such as X, Tiktok and Instagram have filled with user publications that say they plan to go to church for the first time or do it again, thanks to Kirk’s influence.

With more than half a million followers, the user of X @Tonyxtwo posted on Sunday un video a tictok in which a young man says he had to park “five blocks from the church because everyone wants to come now. Amen! Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Charlie.”

Another user of X, who identifies as “Devout Aggie” and “Catholic” and that he has almost 15,000 followers, said that his son, who “does not usually go to church,” he asked assist Mass together The weekend, attributing it to the “Charlie Kirk effect.”

The vicar general of the Catholic diocese of Salt Lake City, Fr. John Evans, said Monday that he had noticed a “slight increase” in Mass attendance during the weekend, but what seemed most unusual was what happened in the days immediately after the murder of Kirk.

“People gathered before Sunday, praying in private, some in groups, praying the rosary and different prayers of all kinds,” Evans told Evans KSL-TV a Utah.

Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.