A placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs has exposed to the world what conservative Catholics think, say and believe.
A few NFL players, especially those who are elite at the glamor position of quarterback (Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers) achieve celebrity status beyond the precincts of the sports page. But unless you are a football fan, you might be hard-pressed to name a single NFL placekicker. Placekickers are the football players who kick extra points and field goals, and "kick off" to the other team at the beginning of a half or after a score. (They should be distinguished from punters, who kick the ball to the other team after the punter's team fails to make a first down.) While placekickers are extremely important to their teams - not infrequently, they are expected to kick a field goal that makes the difference between winning and losing a game - there really haven't been any famous, celebrity placekickers. Only a handful have ever been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But hardcore football fans will tell you that Harrison Butker of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs is in the first rank of NFL placekickers. Here is National Review columnist Jim Geraghty on Butker's football accomplishments (this is pasted from a Geraghty e-newsletter I received earlier today):
...last year, Butker succeeded on 33 out of 35 field-goal attempts, was a perfect 38 for 38 on extra-point attempts, and was five for five on field-goal attempts from beyond 50 yards. He went six for six on field goals in the team’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals, including a 54-yarder. Also, more than 87 percent of his kickoffs were touchbacks [meaning they were kicked too far for the other team to catch and return the ball - JP]. In his career, he’s scored 900 points and kicked more field goals of 50 yards or longer than anyone else in team history. At one point, he succeeded on 24 field goals in a row, another Chiefs team record. In 2022, he connected on a 62-yard field goal, the longest in Chiefs history. In 2020, he made two 58-yard field goals in the same game. He also holds the team record for most field goals kicked in a single season. Earlier this year, he kicked the longest field goal in Super Bowl history, a 57-yarder.
In just seven years, he’s become the third-highest scorer in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs. If he’s not the best kicker in the league right now, he’s up there in, say, the top five.
I agree with Geraghty's take on Butker - he's one of the best placekickers in football. And in our culture which prizes high athletic achievement, that makes Butker a marketable figure, at least to the large subset of Americans who are football fans. In addition, Butker has famous teammates, including Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce (aka Taylor Swift's boyfriend).
But in the past week, Butker has broken out of his football silo and become famous - or, depending on your view, infamous - virtually overnight: not because of his football exploits or those of his jock-celebrity teammates, but because of a commencement address he gave nine days ago at Benedictine College in Atkinson, KS.
Benedictine College has been around since the 1850s. Its history reads like that of many of the other 200 or so Catholic colleges and universities in the United States: founded as a college for young men by a male religious order, the men's college (originally known as St. Benedict) was subsequently supplemented by a separate all-women's college (originally known as Mount St. Scholastica) founded by a female religious order; eventually the men's and women's colleges merged to form Benedictine College. My own alma mater, Loyola University of Chicago, has a similar history.
But more recently, Benedictine in Kansas (not to be confused with Benedictine University in the Chicago suburbs) has taken an intentional turn toward conservative Catholicism. The college was featured in an Associated Press article about an "immense shift toward the old ways" of Catholicism about which David posted earlier this month. Benedictine is a place where men and women still live in separate dorms, the Latin Mass is celebrated regularly and Humanae Vitae's contraception ban is promoted to students.
Until this past week, I didn't know that Harrison Butker self-identifies as a staunchly conservative Catholic, but apparently this is pretty well-known in some conservative Catholic circles, because Benedictine's president invited Butker to address the graduates at this spring's commencement.
The speech is generating quite a bit of media coverage. If you haven't already read a transcript (or if you prefer, you can watch the video on YouTube), I encourage you to do so.
Butker is a professional athlete: he is young and fit, and presents as rather masculine and even a little dashing with his full but well-groomed beard. He's reasonably well-spoken as well.
But it is not the non-verbals, but rather the verbals, that are generating controversy. Clearly, Butker is a tell-it-like-it-is (or rather, tell-it-as-he-sees-it) person. He is not one to couch criticisms in the polite tradition of the academy (or the church). The list of those he targets for criticism is not short: it includes:
- The public health officials who led us through COVID
- President Biden
- Catholic bishops
- Catholic parish priests
- The media
- People who promote DEI
- People who promote, or engage in, or don't object to, gay marriage
- People who promote various other though-to-be-bad things, such as surrogacy
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 this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
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 the 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.
[Applause lasting 18 seconds]
She is a primary educator to our children. She is 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 have read reports (but am not hip and cool enough to actually follow this stuff in real time) that X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Instagram all blew up in the wake of remarks such as that one. Among those those who felt compelled to speak out publicly against his speech: the NFL, which has been trying for years to figure out how to increase its audience share with women, and for whom Taylor Swift's romantic relationship with Butker's teammate had probably seemed like a godsend; and the Sisters of Saint Scholastica, the order of women's religious which founded the women's college which was merged with the men's college to form Benedictine College in 1971. The sisters' statement included this:
Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division. One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God's people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.
What interests me the most about Butker is not his conservative cultural views, many of which are not really unusual. The part that interests me is that he is so overtly a conservative Catholic. He is part of the relatively small but vocal group of Catholics who cluster around the Latin Mass and are suspicious of contemporary society and its secular mores. His mention of St. Josemaría Escrivá makes me wonder whether he is affiliated with Opus Dei; he seems to have the sort of profile which is said to attract the religious order.
In my view, anyone who has spent any time the last thirty years or so reading or arguing with conservative Catholics would find many parts of Harrison Butker's speech immediately recognizable. For example: he lambastes Joe Biden, not because the president is a Democrat or politically liberal, but because Biden self-identifies simultaneously as Catholic and pro-choice. (To be sure, I've been critical of the president and many other public figures for similar reasons.)
It seems, based on what Butker said (we might even say, "preached") that the Latin Mass is the source of his spirituality. Not only does he praise it effusively in the speech, but he exhorts the graduating students to exercise care in choosing where to live, urging them to base the decision on whether or not the Latin Mass is available in that diocese, and on who the bishop of the diocese is. For someone who is not attuned to the thoughts of conservative Catholics - and perhaps even for those of us who are - that must seem like extraordinary quality-of-life advice.
FWIW, I don't criticize Butker for being devoted to the Latin Mass. I think he is genuine when he states that the Latin Mass feeds him spiritually (he alludes a couple of times to the "order" that this spirituality seems to have given his life, and contrasts it with the moral "disorder" that he sees in the contemporary world). I think the Latin Mass truly "works" for him spiritually, as it does for some others. I'd like to think the Catholic church's tent is broad enough to accommodate these devotees.
There are some powerful and influential conservatives in government and the media and probably in business, who also are devotees of the Latin Mass. Anne probably could name some of them, and even where in Washington DC or Arlington, VA they worship. These folks are both political conservatives and Catholic conservatives. But very few of them are famous specifically for being conservative Catholics. It is the "conservative" part, rather than the "Catholic" part, which typically accounts for their fame; the Catholic part of it doesn't usually "leak" into the public square.
I think Harrison Butker has achieved something different. He used the bully pulpit Benedictine gave him to preach conservative Catholicism - and the event is generating a lot of public awareness. He has broken through the walls of the bubble that tends to shield the small but interesting and influential group known as conservative Catholics from the view of the wider public. I can't think of a similar instance, ever, of such a culturally conservative, Latin Mass-attending Catholic reaching such a mainstream audience. Whether that turns out to be significant for conservative Catholicism is something to watch.
If I'm not mistaken I think the "T" in TLM refers to the Tridentine Latin Mass. Big problem if the Traditional Catholics are trying to delegitimize the Mass of Vatican II.
ReplyDeleteI attended Marymount College in Salina KS, my freshman year. Salina isn't too far from Atchison, and the guys from St. Benedict's would sometimes attend our dances. Mt. St. Scholastica was the girl's college; they hadn't merged to become Benedictine College yet. I don't remember them as being particularly conservative or anti-Vatican II in 1969.
I don't follow football and if this guy finds spiritual benefit from the Latin Mass, fine, whatever. But a college commencement is supposed to recognize the achievements of all the graduates. It is disrespectful to the women to imply that they are there to get their "Mrs." degree.
I think it is good if mothers can stay home with their young children, but not everyone can, in fact most of them can't. And most of us will be filling multiple roles over our lifetimes.
I think Benedictine College is trying to become a "niche" college for the traddy Catholic movement. But it's a mistake to read too much into a commencement speech.
Well, if you read the official statement by issued the nuns who run the college, it seems that they were highly displeased by the speech.James Martin reproduced it on his Facebook page which is open to view by all.
DeleteI read their statement and I wasn't surprised that they were displeased. The nuns are neither mothers nor homemakers, and most of them have degrees and professional accomplishments.
DeleteThis football player is simply a DUMB jock. I would not make him either a hero or a villain. The classical DUMB jock simply knows football and nothing else.
DeleteBy DUMB I mean that he simply doesn’t know what he is talking about. Women religious through their building of schools, health care and social service institutions simply made not only the American Catholic Church but much of America.
To go into an institution which is part of the heritage of Catholic women in this country, and advocate basically an Evangelical Protestant notion of marriage is simply pure ignorance. Women religious in America were great entrepreneurs. They inspired Catholic women to be women religious not homemakers, and many Catholic women made the further step that they could achieve great things without becoming women religious.
Likewise, his “love” of the Latin in the Liturgy probably comes with a great ignorance of Latin, Gregorian Chant, etc. He wants someone else to provide all that for him. I loved Latin, and Chant and resent these people who are rarely into actually doing what needs to be done to worship in Latin. They want some priests and choir to provide an exotic religious atmosphere.
I have often had the impression from comments by the Latin mass lovers that they are actually looking to be entertained. They like the elaborate vestments (costumes), the sets (beautiful old fashioned churches, cathedrals with lots of gilt and marble and other rich trappings); the ritual performance on the altar, and especially the music. They don’t want to be participants ( Vatican II) they want to be an audience.
DeleteIn Butker's case, he explicitly mentions in the speech that he doesn't consider himself a "smells and bells" adherent of the Latin Mass. Jack may be right that he's not very learned in the language, the music tradition, and so on. My own (limited) observation of Latin Mass attendees is that they are fine with attending a Low Mass, which usually doesn't have many of the smells/bells trappings nor music. They typically have a missal with the Latin on one side and the English on the other, but they may well be praying the rosary or otherwise not attending closely to the actual text (which can hardly be heard at a Low Mass, anyway, during the Roman Canon).
DeleteRegarding the clothing: I think it's important to them, but not necessarily because they have an unseemly love of silken finery. They have a philosophy that what is used in the Sacrifice of the Mass should be worthy - should be the best that can be offered, because to do less than this is to dishonor God - is to tell him that we are not offering the best part of ourselves. This is why they are such sticklers for what they themselves wear: they dress up for mass, and women take care to have their hears covered. They want the clergy clothed in nice garments for the same reason they want the sacred vessels to be of precious metals: they want to honor God with these things.
"If I'm not mistaken I think the "T" in TLM refers to the Tridentine Latin Mass."
DeleteKatherine, many thanks. I went to make the change in the original post, but I think I had already revised that passage out of existence by the time I saw your comment.
It seems to me that lavish displays of wealth - gilt, gold, etc in churches goes totally against the messages of Jesus in the gospels. He wore simple clothing, as did his apostles and disciples. No silk, no gold, no ermine. Jesus generally preached out of doors, or in simple, homey surroundings. The first “masses” were in private homes. Sharing Jesus’s teachings, remembering him with real bread and real wine. The early Eucharistic meals were Presided over by people who were not ordained priests, often they were women. I’ve always remembered the scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies when he and the bad guy were presented with an array of cups. One was the Holy Grail. The bad guy picked the gold cup becrusted with jewels. After drinking from it he died. The keeper of the Grail then commented “ He chose poorly”. The plain, simple cup was the Grail.
DeleteJim, I have one of those old missals with Latin on one side and English on the other. They were required for our school Masses. I know my dad used to say his rosary during Mass when it was in Latin.
DeleteBasically, men who subscribe to the notion that their wives make them good family men are saying that men need a lady cop to keep them on the straight and narrow. The need for a wifecop is often predicated on the notion that, in their natural state, men are basically alley cats with no inclination for family considerations unless forced into it by women.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that women who do not adequately embrace their motherwife vocation are to blame when men fail to be good fathers and spouses?
How convenient for you fellas!
But I doubt I'll get any better traction on this kerfuffle with you Catholics than on the Bishop Barron deal. So gonna watch my birdies and tend to my gardening.
If you think of it, please pray for Julian and his situation. He's 40 and expecting his first child by his looney girlfriend who has four other children. They broke up rather rancorously before she discovered she was 4 months pregnant, and they are now trying to navigate how co-parenting this baby will work. Also please pray for Julian's parents who are biting their tongues so much I don't know why they haven't bled to death.
I didn't marry my wife because I was looking for a housekeeper, cook, laundress and stay-at-home mom. She wouldn't have flourished if that was the totality of her life, and I wouldn't have wanted that for her. I've tried (although no doubt fallen short) to share the childcare, the cooking and other housework.
DeleteIn the case our marriage, I don't think it was a case of her preventing me from being an alley cat. It's more that I didn't know I could be loved, didn't know what that was like or that it was possible, until she fell in love with me.
I see an article stating that about 1/4 of women stay at home. I wouldn't have guessed the % was nearly that high, but perhaps that's more a comment on the women in our circle, as they tend to have professional careers and get a lot of fulfillment out of them. My wife stayed at home for a while, but when the youngest went off to school, she moved back into the workforce. We felt fortunate that she was able to stay home for those few years.
I stayed home until the kids were both in school full days. But after that I was working part time, and then went back to school, and ended up in the job that I worked in for 23 years. Most people have multiple roles throughout their lives, not all necessarily at the same time. In our case there was no way we could make it long term on one income, let alone help the kids with college and set aside retirement funds. I was grateful that I was able to work.
DeleteYou hear about the "trad wife" movement, but I think that's mainly about posting stuff on social media. I'll bet that what works out now for some of them isn't going to work long term
Also people sometimes have a false nostalgia about what the good old days were like. My mom and both grandmothers were farm/ranch wives. They may not have worked outside the home but they worked plenty hard around home. My in-laws were part owners of a grocery store. My mother in law helped in the store part of the time. And in all these family enterprises the kids got pulled in to work, too, when they were old enough.
DeleteI'm not making assumptions about the marriages of anyone here, and I don't care about anyone's personal choices. We do what we hope is for the best with our families, never mind that we are all imperfect and probably rationalize what we want as good for everyone a lot of the time.
DeleteWhat I find galling is that a very young man on a stage a) presumes to know what young women graduates are feeling/believing now, b) asserts that they have been told "diabolical lies" (by unnamed operators whom the women apparently believe), and c) claims to know that the core of their future happiness lies in producing children and keeping their husbands on the straight and narrow. How he knows all this is unclear other than that this is the role he sees his own wife playing in his, and he's happy as hell with that, so she must be too.
Delete"What I find galling is that a very young man on a stage...presumes to know what young women graduates are feeling/believing now.'" Jean, yeah, I also find that pretty irritating. Also the part about "diabolical lies". Seems like that's a bogey man or conspiracy theory.
I've had to listen to some boring commencement speeches. Boring is under-rated; I'll take boring over "I can't believe he said that."
Comic relief re commencement. Southern oriented, but pretty universal:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/4tXddAyeGYI?si=2QkpBwXmDUuFdjF_
LOL, pretty funny, reminds me of our younger son's HS graduation. It was outdoors, nearly got rained out. Now they have it in the field house.
DeleteWe lucked out at The Boy's graduation. They had a section of chairs for senior citizens on the gym floor, and the ushers thought we were grandparents and seated us there. The speaker was Mrs H, the beloved, longtime English teacher who was retiring. The woman was a saint and made even me tear up a couple times. The kids were all bawling and hugging it out with her and each other after.
Delete"For every action (or words spoken!) there is an equal and opposite reaction."
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that apparently some people were advocating for Harrison Butker to be fired. So now of course the culture wars are taken up a notch, and people who weren't even paying attention are saying that The Left is trying to cancel this good Christian young man.
Good grief (face palm). Makes me long for the good old days before social media, when a commencement speaker for a small college out in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have attracted national attention.
If this makes you disgusted, don't Google the recent Crockett/Ocasio-Cortez/Greene idiocy in the House Oversight Committee. Somebody is going to use that as proof of why women are "too emotional" to be in politics. Women insulting each other and the aged male committee chair too deaf to follow what was going on much less rein in the histrionics.
Delete