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Kicking back
By: Greg Maresca
On the field, middle linebacker Dick Butkus was one of the most intimidating players in NFL history, but it took a placekicker to become the most feared player off it. Who knew that a modest commencement speech by Harrison Butker, the Kansas City Chief’s placekicker, would prompt the Left into a goal line blitz against him that continues unabated.
Butker’s address has kicked butt scoring over 1.8 million views on YouTube that took place at the small, tucked away, Benedictine College run by the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas.
Fearlessly standing against the noxious winds of the zeitgeist – rare for a professional athlete – Butker is the anti-Colin Kaepernick. He could have easily punted and played it safe by pontificating about his three Super Bowl championships and lofty paychecks.
Had Butker stepped on the dais waving a Palestinian flag, endorsing abortion and transgenderism, he would be lauded as a contemporary icon. Rather, he threw an uncontested Hail Mary bringing to light a litany of Catholic catechesis in his commencement address on faith and family.
The kicker was not shy recounting his love and commitment to the faith in what he called “a post-God world.” Benedictine is a Catholic college, so what was the arrogant Left expecting? His greatest sin was criticizing America’s ever growing secular agnosticism.
Butker said the silent parts out loud standing unapologetically for traditional Catholic values.
Butker spoke truth to power when describing the time-honored roles of wives and husbands, saying his wife would agree that her life “truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” Naturally, feminists went crazy branding him misogynistic and a host of other vulgar un-printables. These feminists took their cue from Vice President Kamala Harris who scored another first by dropping the f-bomb, while addressing the recent APAICS Summit.
The Super Bowl record holder didn’t hesitate to give a swift kick in the backside to that self-professed Catholic in the White House saying, “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.”
Butker called out abortion, IVF, birth control, surrogacy, euthanasia, COVID lockdowns, radical feminism, gender ideology, and Gay Pride Month. He lamented the “absence of men in the home” and the “cultural emasculation of men.” In other words, Butker spoke to traditional Catholic moral theology something rarely heard on any given Sunday.
The overt coverage is as much of a story as is the speech itself and the considerable backlash underscores how Catholicism is under attack from both outside and within the Church. That criticism can be found starting with the sisters of St. Benedictine’s College whose chorus against Butker was surreal writing, “The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested.”
The sisters are the crux of the problem.
Ever since Vatican II, the Church has desired acceptance with secular elites and by keeping the hard truths under wraps, it would certainly earn a seat on the dais. The consequence of such poisoned reasoning was a precipitous drop in Mass attendance, a dearth in vocations and ultimately irrelevance.
Jesus taught: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” Evil retreats when people of faith stand united. Jesus prayed that all his disciples would be one as He and the Father are one.
Perhaps change is on the horizon, and credit Butker for kicking things off. In a letter dated May 20, 2024, Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco decreed that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is not to be admitted to Holy Communion until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion and confesses and receives absolution for her cooperation in this evil.
A Change.org petition has 224,785 signatures to get Butker booted from the Chiefs. These Marxists demand compliance without dialogue and questioning. They are the folks who desperately need an overdose of their own medicine.
Donald Trump should take Butker as his vice president.
~ Maresca is a longtime columnist and cradle Catholic living in Flyover, Pennsylvania.
