Catholicism™ Sucks
Let the record show that this is not a reaction piece to the Harrison Butker commencement address
If there is an Iron Law of the Internet, it goes something like this: the stupidest takes get the most attention. When you have more or less three seconds to grab a viewer’s attention, there’s simply no time to, say, define your terms, nuance your argument, or qualify your conclusions. As a content creator howling into the void of the metaverse, you have one hope for success: make everyone either a) really happy or b) really angry, in as short a time frame as you possibly can.
Given this, it’s no surprise that of all the commencement addresses delivered this spring around the country, just one managed to single-handedly dominate the public discourse for weeks.
I didn’t want to write at length about it, and I still don’t, for two reasons: first, as I’ve already suggested, I watched the whole speech, and my biggest takeaway was the forgettableness of it all and the unlikelihood that any of what the speaker said will age well. The cringe factor of so many celebrity Catholics is, I think, more our fault than theirs, as it seems that every time someone famous becomes Catholic or starts to speak openly about their Catholicism we repeat the same mistake, rallying around them prematurely, uncritically thrusting them into the brightest lights, praying that they will somehow give the rest of us more street cred. Nearly always, the result is embarrassingly predictable, as it was in this case.
The second reason is because as I see it, the version of Catholicism that this fellow was shilling, while it may be gathering a certain level of influence in the American Church, is really still marginal and represents only a narrow, ideological, and unhistorical vision of the Church and its role in the world. Much better than fixating on the litany of regurgitated talking points from one NFL player, I think, would be to re-direct our attention to a more robust, engaging message—one truly capable of achieving what the Butkers of the world fail to do, namely, effectively proclaiming the Gospel.
Which brings me to the commencement address given to Christendom College by theologian, professor, and Ratzinger scholar Dr. Tracey Rowland. She titled the address, “Recovering Christian culture in an era of collapse and new beginnings.” Go read it. It’s lovely and genuinely worth your time. Instead of focusing only on the many reasons I hated the Butker speech, I want to dwell here, briefly, on just one of the many ways in which Rowland’s commencement address compared favorably to it from the standpoint of authentic Catholic vision and evangelical witness.
Being Catholic is more than just a set of propositional beliefs; it is a sacramental way of knowing God, growing in intimacy with him, and existing in the world he created. This means there’s a lot of “stuff” attached to it: rites and rituals, spoken prayers, songs, beeswax candles, colored ribbons, gold and silk, bread, wine. This incarnational principle is one of the Church’s greatest glories. But it brings with it the risk that we will begin to see the Church, or to see Catholicism, as an end unto itself—to see the Church as the human society par excellence and to judge everything else by whether it is Catholic™ or not. We are Catholic™, therefore our bookstores should also be Catholic™, as should our bakeries, our car dealerships, and our theaters. Sound familiar?
The Church, it would appear under these conditions, exists to promote Catholicism™ for its own sake, mistaking the sign for the signified, forgetting that the Church itself is the “sacrament of salvation”1 betraying a tragic forgetfulness of the Story in which God, not the Church, is the protagonist.
Though he uses the word “Catholic” fifteen times in his commencement address, Harrison Butker only speaks of Jesus four times. Here they are; pay attention:
As members of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, it is our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically Catholic.
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.
Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.
Christ is King.
Setting aside the hideous errors suggested in Butker’s reference to “who killed Jesus”—and God knows, that might be the worst thing he said in the entire speech—notice the account of Jesus’ identity and mission given in these excerpts. Here, Jesus is depicted first and foremost the Founder of the Church, and we in turn must respond by being “unapologetically Catholic” and “professing the Church.”
If all we can think to do as Catholics is to gab to others about how great it is to be Catholic, we might as well just join a nice country club or a local grocery co-op; then at least we would probably find recruitment to be a bit easier. If the only thing we know how to evangelize is Catholicism™, the only people who will want to come and do-all-the-Catholic-things with us are people looking for a cult, not for God.
Now consider the following excerpt from Tracey Rowland’s commencement address about the person and mission of Jesus Christ:
✨ The full version of this essay is available to paid subscribers. A paid subscription to Recovering Catholic supports independent, ad-free writing, and gives you access to full essays (including the archives), bonus podcast segments, and the comments section, for just $30/year. That’s less than $3/month.✨