"Am I Being Harrison Butker?"
An important question to ask yourself
Someone asked me the other day if I ever struggle deciding what to write about on here. The true answer is that I have a note on my laptop with 25+ topic ideas at any given time, but lately people in Catholic Land have been doing enough weird things that I haven’t even had to open the note.
Another friend asked me my thoughts on Harrison Butker, and I told her I don’t have it in me to tackle that. But after a week, I realized I very much do.
If you’re a person that doesn’t follow Catholic news because you have a normal layperson job, many children to watch, or just a less nosey brain than I do, let me summarize the recent controversy around Benedictine College’s 2024 commencement speaker. Harrison Butker, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, spoke on abortion, homemaking, and Joe Biden. He created enough stir that the Chiefs actually apologized, but was widely praised in conservative media.
Before we get to the nitty gritty, a little about Butker:
He’s a revert to Catholicism who credits confession for having a serious effect on his faith life. He’s a traditional Latin Mass-attendee and has spoken out against what he views as a persecution of Latin Mass-goers in the US. He referred to Pride Month as an example of a “deadly sin” and loudly protested a deceased transgender person being buried by the Catholic Church. He aligns himself with people like Josh Hawley and is basically your typical super-trad-and-proud-of-it dude.
So, look: Benedictine knew what they were getting. This was not a bug to them, it was a feature. The odds that anyone in that crowd were surprised at what he said are slim to none. He was widely cheered and applauded. I could have guessed almost everything he said before he said it. He’s a guy with a brand, and he plays the part.
What were his actual words?
You can find the full transcript here, but here are a few highlights:
Butker started off by saying that the graduating class’ lives were greatly formed by “Bad policies and poor leadership”, on topics like IVF, abortion, etc.
He criticized Biden, specifically for his pro-choice advocacy and for scandalizing other Catholics by letting them “think you can be both Catholic and pro-choice”
He said that we’re too often focused on being the “church of nice” and that graduates were about to enter a world that wasn’t friendly to Catholics
He said that people will want these graduates to keep their faith hidden + silent, but they should claim it loud and proud
He criticized the recent “anti-semitism” bill Congress just passed, and claims “stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.”
He said people will often claim a priest said something to defend their actions, but there are currently a lot of false shepherds
Witty Taylor Swift quote (👏🏻)
He leans hard into the idea that during the time of COVID, Bishops were being “led by fear” without ever exactly saying what they did during COVID that was wrong
He says we only hear from bishops when they ask for money and that we need them to step up and be true leaders
He calls out Benedictine as an authentically Catholic college and discusses the recent AP article that essentially trashed it
He congratulated the women, and this part is why I’m assuming so many of you sent it to me: he says that the majority of women there are probably most excited to be wives and mothers
He thanks his own wife for being a “homemaker” who supports him and made his “success possible”
I’m just going to quote this directly: “Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, ‘Heck, No.’”
He says that there is nothing “natural” about “Catholic birth control”, which I can only assume is referring to Natural Family Planning. He says that people who utilize it are “playing God.”
He calls out absentee fathers and says that much of the violence in our nation is due to a lack of fatherhood.
He pushes people to attempt to attend Latin Mass and professes his own love for it: “I do not attend the TLM because I think I am better than others, or for the smells and bells, or even for the love of Latin. I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today. It is through the TLM that I encountered order, and began to pursue it in my own life.”