The 23-year-old is a 2024 graduate of Villanova University, a Catholic institution.
From left to right: Father Jeffrey Kirby, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church; Nalin Haley; and his parents, Nikki and Michael Haley (photo: Courtesy of Father Jeffrey Kirby/screenshot of X post)
Nalin Haley, the son of former U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley, was received into the Catholic Church on Palm Sunday.
“As parents, Michael and I always prayed that our children would have a faith and relationship with God,” Nikki Haley posted on social media Sunday.
“Today we were so proud to support Nalin in his faith journey as he was confirmed into the Catholic Church, completed RCIA, and received his first holy Communion,” she said of her son.
Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor, was born and raised in the Sikh faith but converted to Christianity after marrying her husband, Michael Haley, in 1996.
In a 2012 interview, Haley said she and her husband “chose Christianity because of the way we wanted to live our life and raise our children.” She was reportedly baptized in a Methodist church but has attended Baptist churches as well.
Nalin Haley, 23, is a 2024 graduate of Villanova University, a Catholic institution. In 2023 and 2024, he distinguished himself for his steadfast presence on the campaign trail and support for his mother. He is the younger of two Haley children. His sister, Rena, 26, is a pediatric nurse.
As his parents look on, Nalin Haley is received into the Catholic Church by Father Jeffrey Kirby at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Indian Land, South Carolina on April 13, 2025. | Photo courtesy of Father Jeffrey Kirby and Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church/Facebook page
Father Kirby also posted on social media to celebrate Nalin Haley’s entrance into the Church, writing: “Congratulations to Wiliam Nalin Peter, who was received into the fullness of the Christian faith today! Welcome home, Nalin!”
The story of Peter and Jackie Halpin, along with their entire family of six adult children, has moved many hearts online. (photo: Go Fund Me / Halpin Family)
When Peter and Jackie Halpin and their six adult children and some of their spouses showed up at the site of the family home in northern Los Angeles County on Thursday morning, there was almost nothing left.
One of the California wildfires had destroyed it, leaving only the foundation, debris, and singed concrete statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Joseph.
They said a prayer near the statue of Mary — a version of the daily consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Then someone said they should sing something. But what?
Peter ended the discussion with an intonation, setting pitch with four notes going up the scale — “La – la – la – laaaaa.” Everyone in the family knows what that means: Regina Caeli, a 12th-century Latin hymn to Mary that Peter’s mother taught all nine of her children.
The Halpin parents, their six children, and at least four spouses — about a dozen people in all — immediately sang it in harmony.
A family friend shot video of the performance. Someone posted it online, where it has caught the attention of thousands of people.
Andrew Halpin, 36, the fourth of Peter and Jackie’s six children (three boys and three girls), described to the Register on Thursday night how he felt during the family prayer.
“I was thinking, ‘I want to be strong for my folks in this moment’— for my parents. And when we started singing, it felt like we were all being strong for each other,” Halpin said in a telephone interview.
“I already feel so much healing because we were able to be there together as a family, and we were able to bond over this song that means so much to our family,” he said.
The Halpins’ performance of Regina Caeli — a seemingly effortless multipart harmony with volume and various pitches — led to a question for Andrew: How did you do that?
“We’re a very musical family. It was instilled in us from Day One, really,” said Andrew, a composer who has a wife and a toddler daughter.
When they were kids, Andrew and his siblings participated in a choir led by an accomplished choirmaster as part of a Catholic home-schooling group. They all played musical instruments from a young age. Nowadays, they also occasionally perform publicly in a family band, called The Haypenny Pigs.
“After our faith, it’s been one of the most cohesive things about my family,” he said. “There really has never been a time joyful or sad when music doesn’t play a part.”
A Home Filled With Music
The Halpins moved into the house, a Craftsman bungalow in Altadena, in 1988. It was yellow and had three bedrooms and one bathroom. The boys shared one bedroom and the girls another. About two decades ago their parents added a master bedroom with another bathroom, Andrew said.
The moment on Thursday morning was sad, even devastating.
His parents lost their home, which is where all the children grew up. One of his sisters and her daughter lost their home, which was at the rear of the same property.
But it hasn’t shaken their faith, he said.
“We have to give everything to God. And if that means our home at this time, we choose to trust that we’re in the palm of his hand,” Andrew told the Register.
Before they evacuated, Andrew’s parents, who are in their early 60s, managed to save 40 years’ worth of family photo albums and some essential documents. But Jackie’s genealogical collection, including old family photos, are gone. So is almost everything else that was in the house.
“You’re standing on the ashes of your childhood, really of your life,” Andrew said. “But you’re alive.”
Peter is a contractor who runs a concrete business. He lost a work truck in the fire, in addition to his home.
A GoFundMe page for Peter and Jackie Halpin had raised more than $60,000 as of early Friday.
Meanwhile, the family is trying to stress the positive.
“What I would want people to get out of this sadness, out of this tragedy, is that we can wring joy out of it. We can instill love,” Andrew said.
Over the years, the back yard of the family home has seen many parties for family and friends, with live music.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a party at the old yellow house that didn’t end with a jam session,” he said.
Andrew said his dad decided even before he got married that he wanted to host a lot of parties like that.
“He wanted to create a place where his family and friends could celebrate and forget their worries,” Andrew said.
“This was home for more than just us. And that’s hard to let go of,” he said.
“People know that home as a place of faith, a place of fellowship, community and music,” Andrew said. “I tell you what, when we rebuild, there’s going to be music there again.”
After his fall from virtual grace, the apologetics ‘expert’ to be replaced by lay character.
Matthew McDonald – Nation – April 24, 2024
JMeet Father Justin, Catholic Answers’ AI priest. (photo: Screenshot / Catholic Answers )Father Justin, we hardly knew ye.
Less than two days after debuting an artificial intelligence (AI) priest character to overwhelmingly negative reviews, Catholic Answers has given “Father Justin” the virtual heave-ho.
The lay-run apologetics and evangelization apostolate, based in El Cajon, California, told the Register that it will replace him on its app with a lay character named “Justin” within a week.
“We won’t say he’s been laicized, because he never was a real priest!” Catholic Answers said in a written statement to the Register late Wednesday afternoon.
A statement from the President of Catholic Answers regarding the character formerly known as “Father Justin”: pic.twitter.com/n3n5q402sO
“We chose the character to convey a quality of knowledge and authority, and also as a sign of the respect that all of us at Catholic Answers hold for our clergy,” the statement, from Catholic Answers’ president, Christopher Check, explained. “Many people, however, have voiced concerns about this choice. We hear these concerns; and we do not want the character to distract from the important purpose of the application, which is to provide sound answers to questions about the Catholic faith in an innovative way that makes good use of the benefits of ‘artificial intelligence.’”
Catholic Answers said it would continue to tweak the way it works with AI.
Depicted wearing a black cassock sitting among chirping birds, the bearded AI “priest” appeared oblivious to the cascade of criticism that erupted on social media after Catholic Answers debuted the character Tuesday at midnight.
Some found him creepy. Some didn’t like his voice. Some worried about replacing actual human beings. Some didn’t like his character being a priest.
“I say this with nothing but respect for you guys and your work, but … this should’ve just been a plain search engine,” said Father Mike Palmer, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, on the social-media platform widely known as Twitter (but formally called X). “Dressing it up as a soulless AI avatar of a priest does absolutely nothing except cause confusion and invite mockery of your otherwise excellent work.”
Even so, “every knock a boost,” as the old saying about negative publicity goes.
About 1,000 people an hour were using the “Father Justin” app as of Wednesday afternoon. Traffic at the Catholic Answers website (Catholic.com) was up 77% in April 2024 versus April 2023, said Donna Barrack, director of marketing at Catholic Answers.
Demand was so high that it was taking minutes to receive an access code by email on Wednesday, something that normally takes a few seconds.
The Register ran into technical problems when it attempted to interact with “Father Justin” on Wednesday. Questions had to be shouted into a laptop microphone, and the app took time to translate them into printed words on the screen. “Eucharist” came out “caressed” and, later, “you, you, you.” “Communion” came across as “commute” and later “commune.”
When he understood a question, though, “Father Justin” provided a short, substantive answer.
Asked why you should go to church on Sunday, Father Justin answered with brief quotations from Scripture (Psalm 122:1; 1 Corinthians 12:27; John 6:54) and also explained: “When we gather together for Mass, we are united with Christ and each other in a profound way. We hear God’s Word in the Scriptures, and we receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. … Going to church isn’t just an obligation, it’s a privilege and a joy.” But The Pillar reported that “Father Justin” said it was okay to baptize someone with Gatorade.
“Father Justin” was aimed at providing answers to questions faster than was possible with human apologists on staff. Several years ago, the organization took down a question-and-answer feature on its website because its staff apologists were inundated with thousands of queries.
“With our mission to explain and defend the Catholic faith, we do think artificial intelligence has a usefulness, at least as a starting point. I would caution against it being an ending point in your journey or in your search for answers,” said Chris Costello, director of information technology for Catholic Answers, in a Zoom interview Wednesday, several hours before the decision to end Father Justin was announced.
Barrack said the “Father Justin” app was an attempt at “gamifying the question-and-answer process” to appeal to young people.
Costello said the intent was never to replace human apologists.
“Obviously, there’s something different in the human delivery,” Costello said. “People … don’t just want the answer. They want to understand the answer. And they want to talk about it and have a back-and-forth, which you can actually do with the application. But I think that there’s always going to be something missing if you don’t have an actual person.”
Do the majority of Catholics not fully grasp the why behind the Liturgy of the Eucharist?
Judy Roberts – Nation – March 28, 2024
Fr. Jonathan Meyer
When an Indiana priest’s message on the Mass went viral on YouTube recently, the response revealed a hunger among Catholics to know more about the Church’s principal sacramental celebration.
Father Jonathan Meyer of All Saints parish in Guilford, Indiana, was astounded when a 33-minute talk he had given at a Jan. 27 men’s conference in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was picked up by the Servants of God YouTube channel in Australia, drawing more than a half million views and 1,432 comments.
“I had no idea it was even happening,” Father Meyer told the Register. “I gave a talk, and the next thing I knew, it was trending like crazy.”
Claiming that more than 90% of Catholics do not fully grasp why they go to Mass, Father Meyer set out in the talk to correct misconceptions and expound on the roots and purpose of the Church’s chief form of worship. In it, he presents 14 “Stations of the Eucharist”he has developed to illustrate the nature of the Mass as the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, taking readers through the Bible and highlighting scenes such as the sacrifice of Abel and the Last Supper.
Father Meyer told the Register in his experience most Catholics bring a kind of consumer mentality to Mass, showing up to get what they want: Jesus in Holy Communion. But Christ, he said, is truly present in the Eucharist not just so that Catholics can receive and adore him. Rather, it is so that they can be at the re-presentation of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
“I think there is this great love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” he said, “but it is completely detached from the true understanding of his presence being given to us so we could enter into the re-presentation of Calvary.”
When Catholics miss this, he said, they tend to cling to peripheral elements of the Mass like music, homilies or community, making them the focal point.
“All those are great and fruits of a well-celebrated Mass, but none is essential to what is taking place,” he said. “… I go to Mass to go to the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, to go to Calvary, to go to my salvation. It literally is my salvation. It is the death and resurrection of the Lord, and I have the ability to unite myself to it.”
Father Casey Jones, pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton parish in Naples, Florida, said his observations mirror those of Father Meyer.
“I can tell by the look on people’s faces at Mass,” he said. “You have these blank, glazed-over kind of eyes. Secondly is the casual way in which people approach the Blessed Sacrament. You see people that come up like I’m giving out a number at the deli counter. You see this lack of understanding.”
“People will receive Holy Communion and then bolt right out the door, without even taking time for a moment of thanksgiving,” Father Jones said.
Others, he said, not only leave early, but arrive late — just in time to receive Communion.
“That is a clear indicator they don’t understand the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they think about ‘what I can get out of it.’ They’ve missed the notion of sacrifice.”
Brant Pitre, research professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute and author and presenter of The Mass Explained video series, agreed that many Catholics, especially those who grew up in the faith, know what to do and say at Mass but don’t necessarily comprehend why.
“One of the reasons Father Meyer’s video is going viral,” he said, “is that it is touching a nerve and filling a gap many Catholics have in understanding the Mass as a sacrifice.”
For instance, he said, Catholics who say they go to Mass to receive Holy Communion are not necessarily wrong to cite that as a reason, given the Mass is ordered not just toward the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ but toward the reception by the priest and the faithful.
“However, many Catholics unfortunately have the idea that we go to Mass only to receive,” he said, “and they forget the Church’s teaching that we go to Mass not only to receive but to offer ourselves in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is really, really important. It’s nowhere clearer than in the Mass itself, in the Offertory.”
When the priest turns to the faithful and says, “Pray, brethren,” Pitre explained, he is asking them to pray that “my sacrifice and yours be acceptable to God the Father Almighty.”
Yet, he continued, “If you ask most Catholics, ‘What is your sacrifice?’ they would be hard-pressed to answer that. The priest is offering the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father in the Person of Christ, but it’s not often as clear that we also go to offer sacrifice.”
Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pitre said, “The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer and work are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value.”
It is especially at the Offertory, he continued, that the faithful are supposed to be bringing their suffering, prayer, the work they’ve engaged in through the week and all their trials and difficulties and offer them on the altar in union with the priest’s offering.
“For me personally, this understanding of Mass not just as reception of Communion but as offering of sacrifice is really transformative for our active participation in the Mass.”
Father Meyer added, “We need the re-presentation of Calvary because we need to take our sufferings and trials there so we know we’re not alone, that there’s a place we can go in our isolation, brokenness and addiction and can unite it to Christ. And this is not just me thinking about Jesus and that he did that one time in history. He allows us to continue to enter into it because we’re all broken, and every day that brokenness continues, and the brokenness of the world continues.”
As he told the men at the January conference in Florida, “I don’t know what cross you have today, but what I do know is that there’s a Mass right now in this world being offered at this very moment, and you can unite that sacrifice and that pain and that wound to that cross, which is your salvation.”
One of the 50 priests who have been serving as “Eucharistic preachers” for the three-year National Eucharistic Revival, Father Meyer said he and the others have been encouraged to preach on the Eucharist as presence, communion and sacrifice.
“Of those three aspects of the Holy Eucharist that the Revival is trying to bring forth,” he said, “the one probably the least understood is the Eucharist as sacrifice, a sacrificial meal that brings us into direct contact with the sacrifice on Calvary.”
He said he is hopeful that the Church, having previously emphasized communion and presence, may now be entering a season in which sacrifice is highlighted.
Even in his own priesthood, Father Meyer said, he doesn’t know if he fully understood the Mass as a sacrifice. Ordained in 2003, he said, “I was fighting with every ounce that I had to try to just get people to believe in the True Presence. If I had it to do all over again, I wish I would have fought the battle that the Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary and that that’s why we have the True Presence.”
Patrick Madrid, host of Relevant Radio’s Patrick Madrid Show, said in speaking at hundreds of U.S. parishes over nearly 40 years, he has observed that, regardless of their level of understanding, Catholics have an innate love for the Mass, and “going to Mass” is very much a part of their identity.
“There is a certain gravitational pull for Catholics who go to Mass because they know that’s what Catholics do,” he told the Register. Those who are more fervent about their faith tend to have more knowledge about the Mass and why they go, he said, but many go simply because they know in some sense that Jesus is present. “Even for those not well-grounded in their faith, they still feel that gravitational pull. They know Jesus is there. Catholics are drawn to Jesus as they understand him to be present in the Mass, even if their understanding is minimal.”
Madrid said he thinks that many American Catholics’ perception of the Mass as a sacrifice was diminished, if not entirely lost, during the liturgical changes that followed the Second Vatican Council because the transition to the new rite was not explained adequately and because many things were done, such as moving tabernacles out of sanctuaries, that had nothing to do with the Council’s vision.
Likewise, Father Jones said he would blame the loss of the sense of the Mass as sacrifice not on the Council itself, but on the implementation of the liturgical reform that followed it.
“The proverbial rug was pulled from under the feet of the faithful with very little explanation given as to why.” He said changes in the language meant that priests stopped talking about sacrifice and the Real Presence and ceased encouraging Eucharistic adoration and devotions.
Similarly, he said, employing a bare-minimum approach to liturgy that used only what was required by the missal and eliminated such elements as incense or chant removed the awe and wonder of sacrifice. “When you take a minimalist approach, it is a great disservice to the faithful because these beautiful elements were given to us by the Church to help teach us what is taking place at the altar.”
Madrid said he believes the English translation of the Roman Missal that went into use in 2011 was a huge improvement over the previous translation and helped restore the rightful emphasis on the Mass as a sacrifice, especially in the Eucharistic Prayers, and thus was a significant step in the right direction.
He said, “As the lay faithful become ever more aware of what really happens at Mass, through those prayers, the momentum of belief in the Real Presence of Jesus is flowing back in the right direction.”
