Far too much ink has been spilled to date over Harrison Butker’s recent commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. I was going to refrain from commenting; however, a number of folks were asking me what I thought and so here goes.
I’m a firm believer in the ‘big tent’ theory of who we are as a Church. In other words, there’s a lot of room for all different kinds of folks on the ideological spectrum – so called liberals, conservatives and centrists. Whatever floats your spiritual boat is just fine with me as long as you’re not trying to throw some out of the boat!
I’m sure Harrison Butker is a great guy and a fantastic kicker in a sport I have little interest in. I do, however, have a great interest and more than a bit of theological background in the Church that I have served for 50 years as a priest. It is from that perspective that I offer my comments.
Benedictine College is a very traditional boutique Catholic College. The President obviously invited Butker to reinforce their particular ideological perspective on the faith. No surprise here. I’m sure, as was reported, his words were well received, and a standing ovation was given to him at its conclusion. No surprise.
To conclude, however, that Butker’s words represented orthodox Catholic theological belief is wrong. They did not. Butker, or whoever drafted the talk for him, obviously had several theological and liturgical axes to grind and grind they did!
As a liturgist, I took grave exception to the following section of his talk:
“I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today. It is through the TLM that I encountered order and began to pursue it in my own life. Aside from the TLM itself, too many of our sacred traditions have been relegated to things of the past, when in my parish, things such as ember days, days when we fast and pray for vocations and for our priests, are still adhered to. The TLM is so essential that I would challenge each of you to pick a place to move where it is readily available.”
Now, to imply – and I’m being diplomatic here - that the unreformed Mass of Trent, a la the Missale of 1962, is how God wants to be worshipped today, disregards the liturgical reforms of an Ecumenical Council, the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the most recent Instructions of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, reigning in the wholesale use of the pre-reformed rites! This is hubris at a totally new level but sadly reflects the dissident ideological perspective of not a few Catholic traditionalists. This is NOT the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Such views reinforce a sad comment recently shared with me by a young person in our parish. When asked why he wasn’t seen at Mass, he stated, I go to the real Mass at St. Michael’s Abbey. Now, my good friends at the abbey would be the first to disabuse this young fellow from such nonsense, I would hope! Yet, Pope Francis is right to be gravely concerned that such sentiments are being reinforced either overtly or tacitly at the TLM. Such comments by a popular football star given at a Catholic College certainly reinforce such heterodox opinions.
I’m going to stop here because I’d like to make the excellent and thorough response of Henry Karlson in his May 21 post in Patheos my own. It is excellent. Tolle et lege! Read here
