Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered a commencement address at Benedictine College that chided Pride Month and shared tough criticism of church leaders.
“This class, this generation, in this time in our society must stop pretending that the things we see around us are normal,” Butker said to the Catholic liberal arts college over the weekend in Atchison, Kansas.
In speaking of the deadly sin of pride, he took a shot at Pride Month, which is celebrated each year in the month of June as it commemorates lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride.
“Not the deadly sins sort of ‘pride’ that has an entire month dedicated to it but the true, God-centered pride that is cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify him,” he said.
LGBT activist Justice Horn took offense at the football star’s comment.
“Harrison Butker doesn’t represent Kansas City nor has he ever. Kansas City has always been a place that welcomes, affirms, and embraces our LGBTQ+ community members,” Horn wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The Chiefs kicker called on students to stand up for Catholic teachings.
“The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Butker said. “We fear speaking truth because now, unfortunately, truth is in the minority.”
Butker had some tough words for priests needing to be held to a higher standard.
“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. It’s easy for us laymen and women to think that in order for us to be holy that we must be active in our parish and try to fix it,” he said.
The 28-year-old athlete added more criticism of the church’s handling of the pandemic.
“We saw during the pandemic that too many bishops were not leaders at all and they were motivated by fear of being sued,” he said. “Their actions, intentional or unintentional, showed that the sacraments don’t actually matter because countless people died alone without access to the sacraments, and it’s a tragedy we must never forget.”
The football star took aim at hypocritical Catholics pushing dangerous ideas.
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“From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common: They are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn’t cut it,” Butker explained.
“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.
