The city of Kansas City disowned Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in a tweet due to his Catholic conservative speech at a Catholic college.
Butker has found himself under fire due to the speech. How dare he!
Butker is an outspoken Catholic. He makes no apologies for his Catholic faith and conservative views.
Those views came out when Butker gave the commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas, a Catholic college.
I’ve included the full speech at the bottom of the post. You can also read the whole thing at Forbes.
I picked it apart a little bit. Thank goodness Catholics have someone like Butker who isn’t afraid to use his platform to advocate for the faith.
The speech included Butker lamenting the erosion of Catholic values while criticizing President Joe Biden for being a fake Catholic:
While COVID might have played a large role throughout your formative years it is not unique. Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues. Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder. Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally. He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I’m sure to many people it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice. He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common: They are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn’t cut it.
I love this part of his speech because I wish Catholics wouldn’t be so, as he put it, “the Church of nice.” We have to defend ourselves and not apologize:
These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society to not bring up. You know, the difficult and unpleasant things. But if we are going to be men and women for this time in history we need to stop pretending that the “Church of nice” is a winning proposition. We must always speak and act in charity but never mistake charity for cowardice. It is safe to say that over the past few years I’ve gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind. I never envisioned myself nor wanted to have this sort of a platform but God has given it to me so I have no other choice but to embrace it and preach more hard truths about accepting your lane and staying in it.As members of the church founded by Jesus Christ, it is our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically Catholic. Don’t be mistaken: even within the church, people in polite Catholic circles will try to persuade you to remain silent. There even was an award-winning film called “Silence” made by a fellow Catholic wherein one of the main characters, a Jesuit priest, abandoned the church, and as an apostate, when he died is seen grasping a crucifix quiet and unknown to anyone but God. As a friend of Benedictine College, his Excellency Bishop Robert Barron said in his review of the film it was exactly what the cultural elite want to see in Christianity: Private, hidden away and harmless.
The left also went crazy because Butker praised his wife for embracing her vocation as mother and wife. The left completely misconstrued this part of his speech, leaving out an important part:
For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you, how many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your career.
Butker then praised his wife, who chose to be a mom and wife:
I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.I’m on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I’m beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me. But it cannot be overstated, that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker. She’s a primary educator to our children. She’s the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core. And it is through our marriage that Lord willing, we will both attain salvation. I say all of this to you because I’ve seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God’s will in their life. Isabelle’s dream of having a career might not have come true. But if you ask her today, if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say, “heck no.”
Butker did not tell the women to abandon their degrees or future careers out of the house.
Not once did Butker tell the women to stay in the kitchen.
All Butker did was make sure the women knew that being a wife and mom was okay. It is okay to get a degree even if you become a wife and mom.
Society tries to belittle women who choose to be moms and wives as careers. This is wrong and belittling even though we choose this life. Little do they know that the women who choose this path are usually the head of the household! It’s also in our biology to take this path. I know from experience.
Then Butker addressed the men, encouraging them to be present and not apologize for their masculinity.
Butker had harsh words for the Church, especially when it came to COVID and the lockdowns:
They were motivated by fear: fear of being sued, fear of being removed, fear of being disliked. They showed by their actions, intentional or unintentional, that the sacraments don’t actually matter. Because of this countless people died alone, without access to the sacraments, and it’s a tragedy we must never forget.—We cannot buy into the lie that the things we experienced during COVID were appropriate. Over the centuries there have been great wars, great famines, and yes, even great diseases, all that came with a level of lethality and danger. But in each of those examples, church leaders leaned into their vocations, and ensured that their people received the sacraments. Great saints like St. Damien of Molokai, who knew the dangers of his ministry, stayed for 11 years as a spiritual leader to the leper colonies of Hawaii.
I could not imagine receiving the Anointing of the Sick (often called the last rites, but anyone who is sick or getting surgery can get it) as I’m dying.
How many kids had their First Communion and Confirmation pushed back?
Not receiving Communion for so long hurt too much, especially on Easter. Of all days, we couldn’t receive Communion on the holiest day of the year. That sucked.
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