An NFL kicker, who claims to be an authentic Catholic, fumbles commencement speech

NFL Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs team kicker Harrison Butker joins his teammates for a celebration on the South Lawn of the White House on May 31, 2024, in Washington, DC. Butker criticized President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic among other topics in a May 11, 2024, commencement address at Benedictine College. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

When I was about 10, I wanted to be a nun. The fact that I am Jewish was an impediment, but maybe not an insurmountable one. It was not religion that lured me. It was the quiet life of contemplation that I, in my imagination, assumed that nuns enjoyed.

Just a few years later, I became very familiar with some extraordinarily engaged, social activist nuns who marched against the Vietnam War and against nuclear proliferation. Many, not all, were part of the Catholic Worker movement, an affiliation of Catholics who believe that fully adopting Christ’s principles means advocating for a more just and peaceful world. They had my whole-hearted admiration.

So, when I read the reports of Kansas City Chiefs kicker ’s speech at Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas, on May 11, the outrage about his commentary, and the defenses of it, I knew that this was not simply the mainstream culture’s difficulty with Catholicism.

Harrison Butker, in his speech, aligned himself with those who are “authentically and unapologetically Catholic.” But based on his remarks, Butker is a fundamentalist. All those who are offering excuses for his weird, misogynistic, antisemitic commencement speech need to be clear; he is not simply a devout man speaking from a Catholic perspective. His perspective is extremist.

He appears to believe that whatever modernizing the Catholic Church has done over the past decades has been a demonic slide away from holiness. While he is not alone in this, his particular brand of worship is not mainstream. Nor is his sense that women being told that they can, and even should, make lives for themselves outside homemaking, possibly separate from a man, is diabolical (his term). The nuns, apparently, even the Benedictines , want a word.

His commentary has dangerous repercussions. But I am not worried that women will believe him. Those that do are welcome to live as they choose.

All those who are offering excuses for his weird, misogynistic, antisemitic commencement speech need to be clear; he is not simply a devout man speaking from a Catholic perspective. His perspective is extremist.

I am worried about two things, both related to his assertion that his views are the purest expression of Catholicism. First, he ties an ancient antisemitic weapon to current Catholic thinking. He says, “ Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.” He is referring to the bill which passed the U.S. House recently, which seeks to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism .  While there are elements of the definition that many would argue with, making the claim that “the Jews” killed Jesus is not one of those in question.

Even if you believe that the New Testament is history, and you inexplicably exclude the Roman authorities from responsibility, and you choose to put aside the whole beautiful, mysterious aspect of Christ’s sacrifice in which it is both willing, and preordained, saying “the Jews killed Jesus” is a pointless slur, one that has been repudiated by Catholic doctrine . It is a classic bigoted thought process to hold all of a group responsible for the acts of some, especially from 2,000 years ago. This kind of thinking is present in too much of our political discourse and our acting biases today, and I can think of so many contemporary examples it makes my head hurt.

Here is a thought: It would be like holding all Catholic people, then and now, responsible for the Crusades, or the Inquisition. Which, I guess is not a problem if you think these events were righteous endeavors, which Butker very well might.

The second problem involves creating the perception that the most intolerant version of a religious worldview, in any religion, is the best one. This is dangerous for life in a religiously plural society. To coexist, we have to cultivate tolerance, which is difficult if someone else’s theology feels like a threat. If I know that a large group of my neighbors think I am a source of evil, I am going to be more than a little uncomfortable. Especially considering the history, of course, of the Crusades, and the Inquisition.

Since these beliefs are not mainstream, I do not have that worry in America, or here in Rhode Island, where we have lived with religious diversity for almost 400 years.

I suspect, with some concern, that Harrison Butker and his associates would like me to live in a world where I do not have this comfort.

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