Quite the most astonishing thing about a <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">speech given by the professional American footballer Harrison Butker</mark></a> last month, is the backlash it generated.
The National Football League has condemned his remarks as being out of keeping with its values. Taylor Swift fans have taken exception to a passing quote from one of her songs. Minority groups have objected to a mention of Pride Month. Thousands of people have called for him to be dropped by his team; mainstream media outlets have piled into the controversy.
What did he say that was so inflammatory? In a graduation address to some 480 students at Benedictine College in Kansas, he told the women in the audience: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to suggest that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
There were other elements of the address that caused offence: his condemnation of Joe Biden for apparently making the sign of the Cross at a pro-abortion rally and of the president’s support for abortion; his contention that men should take pride in their role as husbands and fathers and in the home, and should resist their present marginalisation in society; his opposition to surrogacy; the reference to Pride Month.
But what almost all the critics have focused on is that passage where he suggested that most women, like his wife, are happiest as the mainstay of the home and the primary educators of their children. In short, Mr Butker has ventured onto the one subject that everyone of every background and intelligence has a view on: the place of women in the home.
But what on earth is wrong with what he said? Mr Butker did not say that women should not have careers or derive satisfaction from them. He did not say that women cannot be fulfilled unless they are mothers – which would be an odd thing for a Catholic to say, given the role of religious sisters in the Church. He did not say that women should return to the kitchen.
He did say that for his wife her primary role as mother gives her enormous satisfaction, and he wanted to point out to the young women graduates that they may well attach more importance to that role than to their careers. So? It is absolutely right for Mr Butker <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/a-womans-defence-of-harrison-butker/">to point out the vital function of raising children for society.</a></mark>
He is absolutely right to point out that absent fathers are a contributory factor to social breakdown. He is absolutely right that the importance of marriage and parenthood for young women is insufficiently acknowledged.
It says a good deal about contemporary ideas of what is and is not acceptable to say in public that this speech at a small college on the banks of the Missouri River should have attracted such astonishing controversy. Indeed, prior to the advent of social media, it might have passed unnoticed. It is also the case that many of those who condemn Mr Butker most vigorously seem not to have read the text of his speech in its entirety, though they may well not have agreed with it if they did.
What should trouble us is that Mr Butker’s frankness should have created such an astonishing, disproportionate backlash.
The US constitutionally protects free speech but it seems that only one kind of speech is in fact socially acceptable – the kind that a group of the political class agrees with. It is not only Mr Butker who has attracted social censure for his public speech. The entrepreneur <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/interview-george-farmer-on-his-catholic-faith-and-being-married-to-a-us-media-star/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">George Farmer in an interview</mark></a> – a more in-depth version of which features in the June edition of the <em>Catholic Herald </em>magazine – drew attention to the price paid by his wife, Candace Owens, a <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/us-media-star-candace-owens-converts-to-catholicism-at-the-brompton-oratory/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">recent Catholic convert</mark></a> and a US media personality, for her public expression of controversial views.
The anodyne phrase “the courage of one’s convictions” has never been more true. Mr Butker’s speech made clear he was aware his remarks would be controversial, but he felt that it was his duty as a Catholic to speak out about social realities. Indeed, he feels that Catholics are far too shy about their faith. And the substance of the row – the importance of the family as the bedrock of society – is central to Catholic social teaching.
That is not to say that women should not work outside the home; Mr Butker will no doubt be an admirer of the Catholic US Supreme Court judge Amy Coney Barrett, for example. But that is not the point. <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-black-color">The point is that Mr Butker is absolutely right to speak his mind</mark>.
His courage points to a reality of the Catholic Church in America: that it is laypeople like Mr Butker who are increasingly taking up positions of leadership within the Church. Good for them. <br><br><em>Photo: Harrison Butker, #7 of the Kansas City Chiefs, watches his 28-yard field goal during the second quarter against the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, 11 February 2024. In a thrilling and closely contested match, Butker's field goal proved crucial to his team's win. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.)</em> <br><br><strong><strong><strong><strong>This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent and high-calibre counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click</strong> <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1">HERE</a></mark>.</strong></strong></strong>
