Betsy Kneepkens: All Catholic colleges should speak truth ‘courageously with charity’

Faith and Family 

Soil erosion was the topic of the commencement address at my college graduation. The person giving the address was a prominent U.S. senator who was Catholic. Well over 2,000 graduates were in attendance who had chosen a private Catholic college to receive their education. 

Knowing I had to pay for my education, I was intentional selecting a university whose mission was rooted in the Catholic tradition. All graduates had to complete two philosophy classes — logic and ethics — and then two theology courses. The purpose of taking those classes was to teach students how to learn, to form an argument, and to have the skills to pursue truth. The classes were intended to guide that pursuit by using logical reason and including God as the source of that truth. The university wanted students to graduate as critical thinkers who could understand truth and its impact on the world. As graduates, not only did we learn the “what” in our subject areas, but also the “why.” 

In the 1980s, the world was becoming more and more secularized. Although soil erosion was a meaningful ecological concern, our speaker missed an excellent opportunity to send these well-formed graduates into a world that needed more of the good, beautiful, and sacred. During this time, divorce was skyrocketing, abortion was being normalized, and being a mother and homemaker was starting to be perceived as a lesser lifestyle choice compared to being a “professional woman.” The perception of children went from being a gift to being an inconvenience. All these concepts flew in the face of what God has intended for his beloved children. I was graduating into a culture rapidly turning its back on our Creator. 

This Catholic senator at this Catholic college picked a safe message that could have been delivered at any university. It was neither challenging nor bold. Sitting patiently on the hot football field, my classmates and I needed that boost to look at the world differently than graduates at the university down the street. Our country was headed in a direction that could potentially wound many. 

We should have been charged as graduates to be courageous, because we were prepared and formed to lift our culture away from the bad, the ugly, and the godless. Our speaker did not do that. Sadly, as the world was turning its back on our Creator, many of our Catholic universities were doing the same. 

This past month, Harrison Butker, a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, a practicing Catholic, and one of the best players in that position, delivered the commencement address at Benedictine College, which is Catholic. This football legend’s address received national attention. There were some positive reviews but many negative comments. These louder, angry voices were all over the internet. 

The mainstream media focused primarily on the side critical of his address. The graduates and family members gave Butker a standing ovation. Others not in attendance have signed petitions asking the Chiefs to terminate Butker’s contract. 

In Atchison, Kansas, Benedictine College had previously marginalized its Catholicism and was on the brink of closure. Twenty-some years ago, instead of shutting their doors, they recommitted themselves to their original purpose: educating future leaders in the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. As they state in their mission, not everyone attending the university must be Catholic, but their decision to attend means they accept the university’s goals. Since its recommitment to its mission in 2000, its enrollment has increased by 121%. 

Butker’s address was last month, and the media is still covering it, even though the typical news cycle is very short. Butker’s commencement address centered on fundamental Catholic values. He respected the graduates’ career decisions but encouraged those who had a vocation to motherhood and fatherhood to embrace and hold that as primary. He challenged the Catholic Church, its humanness, and where we might have gone astray. He challenged our culture and the life issues that are damaging to families, causing a severe crisis around the institutions of marriage and family life. Butker was bold, asking these graduates to think differently than the world and use what they learned at Benedictine to challenge, and change, the world. 

Butker was a voice in the wilderness. 

What saddens me is that he should not have been the sole commencement messenger making news in a country in dire need of the Catholic ethos. There are 221 Catholic institutions of higher learning in this country; I surmise they all had commencement speakers in 2024. There is no one in the media or on the Internet talking about the other 220 Catholic college commencement addresses. 

Embracing Catholicism is controversial because it means your thoughts and actions are radical and against the current norms. What is the purpose of these Catholic universities if they do not form students differently from their “peer” public universities? This country does not need 750,000 students (that’s the number of students attending Catholic colleges in this country) who learn just like the public or secular institutions down the block or in the next city. 

Butker’s speech was unique. However, it should not have been. We had 220 other commencement opportunities to speak the truth to this troubled world. 

Butker has been vilified. I do not feel sorry for him; he is doing his baptismal duty, and as Christ said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). He is being persecuted because he was being brave and radical in a highly wounded world. Without boldness, courage, and a different perspective, our society will continue to move toward despair. 

We have the mechanism to create leaders to change the trajectory of this despair. Those leaders are in our Catholic colleges and universities. The United States has the largest network of Catholic colleges and universities, so we are most primed to prepare and form the graduates to reintroduce the good, the beautiful, and the sacred back into our country, communities, and families. We need the Catholic colleges and universities that are not embracing their Catholicism to do that, and do it, as Butker said, “courageously with charity.” 

We have the charity part down well. As Catholic institutions and as Catholics we need to do the courageous part now. 

Betsy Kneepkens is director of the Office of Marriage, Family, and Life for the Diocese of Duluth and a mother of six.