Harrison Butker has added his voice to other public figures calling out the anti-Christian crassness that was overtly on display during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris. <br><br>The Kansas City Chiefs’ kicker, who in addition to helping his team win this year's Super Bowl, has emerged as a vocal Christian activist, <a href="https://x.com/buttkicker7/status/1816953986114822172"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">quoted</mark></a> Galatians 6:7-8 in a post on the social media platform <em>X</em> that also featured a clip of the offending moment:
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting."<br><br>The opening ceremony on 26 July, during which the involvement of drag queens appeared to be a recurring theme, featured a scene where a group of drag queens and a notably rotund woman wearing an aureole halo crown posed themselves at a long table in a style parodying the iconic image of the Last Supper.
Butker has become of the US’s most famous Catholic sportspersons, with far more on his young shoulders than having to take crucial field goals for his team, or that he likely expected – and his devout Catholicism is partly to blame, so to speak.
In May, he came under a withering attack from much of the mainstream media for a commencement address he gave at Benedictine College, a Catholic liberal arts school in Kansas. <br><br>During his speech, among many things, he spoke about the importance of parenthood and especially of mothering, based on his personal experiences as a married man with two young children.
The media pounced. He was lampooned for, it was claimed, saying that a woman's role is in the kitchen (which he didn't say) and for attacking the LGBT community (which he didn't do either). <br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/heres-to-harrison-butker-a-winner-with-the-guts-to-tell-the-truth/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Here’s to Harrison Butker, a winner with the guts to tell the truth</mark></a></strong>
The controversy at this year's Olympics comes at a particularly interesting time in the landscape of US Catholicism, with Catholic public figures from all walks of life increasingly speaking out about culture war issues and the growing anti-Christian rhetoric – and often practise – of modern secularism.
“This deeply secularist, post-modern society knows who its enemy is; they're naming it and we should believe them, they are telling us who it is,” Bishop Barron, one of the biggest and most well known Catholic voices in the US, <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/bishop-barron-slams-gross-mockery-of-last-supper-and-christian-faith-during-olympic-games-opening-ceremony/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">said in a two-minute video</mark></a> he posted online to draw attention to what he calls the “gross mockery” of the Last Supper and the Christian Faith.
At the same time, the US presidential race is having its own “Catholic moment” following Donald Trump’s nomination of JD Vance as his running mate.
Vance has written extensively <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-black-color">about how his Catholic conversion was inspired by the likes of St Augustine, the French Catholic philosopher René Girard and the wreckage wrought by the modern age</mark>. <br><br>Furthermore, and unlike the majority of politicians when it comes to religion, Vance appears increasingly willing to discuss how Catholic social teaching resonates with the need to address the destructive urges of modern society that are wreaking such havoc and misery across vulnerable communities in the US. <br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/jd-vances-catholic-conversion-inspired-by-st-augustine-and-wreckage-of-the-modern-age/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">JD Vance’s Catholic conversion inspired by St Augustine – and the wreckage of the modern age</mark></a></strong><br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/how-catholic-philosopher-rene-girard-could-shape-us-politics-now-jd-vance-on-republican-ticket/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Catholic philosopher René Girard could shape US politics now JD Vance on Republican ticket</mark></a></strong>
<em>Photo: Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs speaks to the media during the Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, 5 February 2024. (Photo by Chris Unger/Getty Images.)</em><br>
