Butker, 28, kicked the game-tying field goal for the Kansas City Chiefs late in the fourth quarter in Super Bowl LVIII this past February, a year after kicking the game-winning field goal late in the Super Bowl in February 2023.
A practicing Catholic who attends the Latin Mass, Butker is married and has two children.
In May 2023, he drew attention with his commencement address at his alma mater, Georgia Tech, during which he advised graduates to avoid being “alone and devoid of purpose” and to combat loneliness, anxiety, and depression with what he called “one controversial antidote that I believe will have a lasting impact for generations to come: Get married and start a family.”
Benedictine is a Catholic school in northeastern Kansas associated with the Benedictine religious order that has been endorsed by The Cardinal Newman Society as “a faithful Catholic college.” The school has about 2,100 undergraduates.
Butker’s approximately 20-minute speech at Benedictine had little of the light banter and motivational encouragement typically found at graduation ceremonies, a point he noted.
“I know that my message today had a little less fluff than is expected for these speeches, but I believe that this audience and this venue is the best place to speak openly and honestly about who we are and where we all want to go, which is heaven,” Butker said.
To be faithful, he said, Catholics must address publicly hot-button cultural issues.
“These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society to not bring up. You know, the difficult and unpleasant things. But if we are going to be men and women for this time in history, we need to stop pretending that the church of nice is a winning proposition,” he said. “We must always speak and act in charity, but never mistake charity for cowardice.”
Butker said closing the churches during the coronavirus shutdowns of 2020 is an example of bishops shirking their responsibility.
“As we saw during the pandemic, too many bishops were not leaders at all. They were motivated by fear, fear of being sued, fear of being removed, fear of being disliked. They showed by their actions, intentional or unintentional, that the sacraments don’t actually matter,” Butker said. “Because of this, countless people died alone, without access to the sacraments, and it’s a tragedy we must never forget.”
Butker did not name any particular Catholic clerics. But along with bishops he also criticized priests.
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“There is not enough time today for me to list all the stories of priests and bishops misleading their flocks, but none of us can blame ignorance anymore and just blindly proclaim that ‘That’s what Father said,’” Butker said. “Because sadly, many priests we are looking to for leadership are the same ones who prioritize their hobbies or even photos with their dogs and matching outfits for the parish directory.”
“Focusing on my vocation while praying and fasting for these men will do more for the Church than me complaining about her leaders,” Butker said.
To all the graduates, he recommended that they evangelize wherever they go.
“Never be afraid to profess the one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, for this is the Church that Jesus Christ established, through which we receive sanctifying grace,” Butker said.
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