A Female 2024 Graduate Responds to Harrison Butker
This year’s commencement speaker for Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas, stirred up a heap of controversy from the media. Harrison Butker, a devout Catholic husband, father, and 3x Super Bowl champion kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs addressed the 2024 graduates with great humility and palpable depth. In his speech, Butker capitalized on the Catholic platform expressing his thoughts on a variety of pertinent matters, including seemingly the most controversial topic in the world today, the roles of men and women. Midway through the speech, Butker chose to address the female graduates directly, bringing to light the reality that while the women are about to cross the stage, be handed their diplomas, and start pursuing careers, they will not find true vocational fulfillment outside of the role of motherhood. This article is a response to Butker’s comments as a female college graduate of 2024 and a young Catholic woman discerning God’s will for my own life.
After congratulating the female graduates, Butker made it known that he wished to address the woman specifically because in his own words, he thinks, “It is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” Butker cuts right to the heart of the matter in stating this. The reality he is bringing to light is not that women ought not to get a degree or pursue a career, but that this is not all there is. The diabolical lie that Butker is referring to is that motherhood is a lesser good that women can seek on their own terms only after they have felt satisfied in the world of careers. This satisfaction, however, is not lifegiving nor is it able to ever replace a vocation. Butker goes on to say, “I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” Using direct language, he actively defends the weight of motherhood and says what the world is afraid to.
As a recent 2024 college graduate, I find myself able to agree with Butker without denying the reality of the hard work I put into obtaining my degree. I find myself stirred to admiration. Butker is in no way dismissing the efforts of women. Rather, he is highlighting a title that no job could ever amount to: mother. From a Catholic point of view, it is understood that motherhood may mean natural motherhood or spiritual motherhood, but the root of his message lies in the fulfillment one receives from doing the will of God in their life. His statement does not subtract from the work the women have put into their studies but rather places everything into order and offers a greater perspective. Though it is meritorious to pour oneself into a good like a craft or career, there are higher goods such as raising children and making a home, that could never compare to the former, for life does not occur outside of the family, but only in and through the family. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Children are not a distraction from a more important work. They are the most important work.” In a post-modern, post-family society, Butker’s speech is nonsensical. It holds no value for a woman who has fallen victim to the lie that she can be more fulfilled in a work setting than in her home. While not all women are called to be natural mothers who nurture a physical home, the vocation to motherhood extends to all women in all its forms. Every woman is called to pour into a home of some sort, whether that be with four walls or not. It is women who have the unique gift of attending to the smallest things, beautifying a space, and nourishing the souls around them.
As a young Catholic woman pursuing my future path, whatever it may be, I can confidently say that it is my greatest desire to make a home, to love who is in front of me, and to bear life. Found in the Gospel of John 10:10, “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Christ offers men and women the opportunity to live a life of purpose and fulfillment in and through the “vocation to love,” as St. Therese puts it. While men and women are called to embrace smaller vocations like careers, the only true fulfillment is found in the vocation to love and serve another. In the words of the Second Vatican Council in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church, Gaudium Et Spes, “Man cannot fully find himself, except through a sincere gift of himself.” I believe this message to be at the center of Butker’s address, that women will not find their greatest fulfillment outside of their greatest calling. Now is the time for the dignity and the weight of motherhood to be restored and made known throughout the world.
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
First Holy Communion: Sermon from May 16, 1943
Here is a sermon from the good old days by +Rev. Msgr. Vincent Nicholas Foy (August 14, 1915 – March 13, 2017), from 1943. Readers may recall that Pope Saint Pius X, by the decree Quam Singulari in 1910, lowered the customary age of reception of Holy Communion – after the rigours of the plague[…]Continue reading→
In the Glorious Light of Easter, Alleluia!
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Col. 3:3-4). The Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour[…]Continue reading→
An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday
The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→
Europe’s Long Descent
(As we meditate on this day on Christ’s burial, and His descent into hell, it is fitting to ponder here with contributor Peter Marcus how the world seems to be heading there as well. The difference is that, although God cannot ‘redeem’ hell, nor those therein, He can and did redeem the world. There is[…]Continue reading→
Pope Saint John Paul II’s First Good Friday Homily
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM Good Friday, 13 April 1979 When we make the Way of the Cross from one station to the next, in spirit we are always at the spot wherethis journey had its “historical” place: where it[…]Continue reading→
A Meditation for Good Friday: How To Undo the Effects of Sin?
Cardinal Newman, now Saint John Henry Newman, was a towering figure of nineteenth-century Catholicism who is almost universally admired. I say “almost” because not everyone likes him. I knew a priest once, Arthur Caulkins, who has become disenchanted with Newman. As an undergraduate Arthur had been enamoured of Newman, and this interest continued when he[…]Continue reading→
Pope Benedict’s Last Holy Thursday Homily
MASS OF THE LORD’S SUPPER HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Basilica of St John Lateran Holy Thursday, 5 April 2012 Photo Gallery (Video) Dear Brothers and Sisters! Holy Thursday is not only the day of the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, whose splendour bathes all else and in some ways draws it to[…]Continue reading→