Harrison Butker's Full Commencement Address | EP 19

So there's two major threads that I want to talk about here. One is the fact that what

Butker is saying is amazing, it's what this world needs to hear. And he's saying it because of a biblical morality.

Now the other thing is, he's completely destroying the concept of Catholicism, because he, by sola scriptura, knows what the hierarchy doesn't, from the

Pope on down. They are not teaching him this, he's rebuking them because the leadership doesn't have it.

It's not of God. So he's destroying Catholicism without realizing it. He's a little

Protestant without knowing it, because he's sola scriptura, he's learning this not from them, he's blasting the hierarchy, he's learning it from God through his word.

And welcome to Tearing Down High Places. My name's Average Joe, I'm here with Pastor Jeff Kleewer, and we've got a fun episode today.

Well, you know, we know the devil likes being mocked, so we're going to mock a little evil in the world. But first, we're going to have a positive spin.

What are we going to look at first, Pastor? Well, I think we're starting with Harrison Butker, for the

Chiefs, and he takes a strong stand. They try to crucify him for it, but I think that's backfired on them now.

They just look ridiculous. He's a Catholic at a Catholic university giving the convocation address, and he talks about Catholic doctrine.

Yeah, yeah. And then we're going to contrast that with the head of the

Catholic Church, right? Right, right. That's going to be today's episode.

Well, maybe we can find some positive stuff for him. Maybe he's just misguided. Maybe we can get him on an episode.

We could help him out. Yeah, I'm sure the Pope will come on. We're going to look the brother up. That's Harrison Butker, and then tear a

Pope down. We're going to tear a

Pope down. I love it. That is so funny. All right, so let's check out our video we got here. We got it teed up, and here we go.

I'm sure your high school graduation was not what you had imagined, and most likely, neither was your first couple years of college.

By making it to this moment through all the adversity thrown your way from COVID, I hope you learned the important lessons that suffering in this life is only temporary.

As a group, you witnessed firsthand how bad leaders who don't stay in their lane can have a negative impact on society.

It is through this lens that I want to take stock of how we got to where we are and where we want to go, as citizens and, yes, as Catholics.

One last thing before I begin. I want to be sure to thank President Minnis and the board for their invitation to speak.

When President Minnis first reached out a couple of months ago, I had originally said no. You see, last year,

I gave the commencement address at my alma mater, Georgia Tech, and I felt that one graduation speech was more than enough, especially for someone who isn't a professional speaker.

But of course, President Minnis used his gift of persuasion and spoke to the many challenges you all faced throughout the

COVID fiasco and how you missed out on so many milestones the rest of us older people have taken for granted.

While COVID might have played a large role throughout your formative years, it is not unique. Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues.

Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values in media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.

Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith, but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro -abortion rally.

He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I'm sure to many people, it appears that you can be both

Catholic and pro -choice. He is not alone. 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.

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. We must always speak and act in charity, but never mistake charity for cowardice.

It is safe to say that over the past few years, I've gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind.

I never envisioned myself nor wanted to have this sort of a platform, but God has given it to me.

So I have no other choice but to embrace it and preach more hard truths about accepting your lane and staying in it.

As members of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, it is our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically

Catholic. Don't be mistaken. Even within the Church, people in polite

Catholic circles will try to persuade you to remain silent. There even was an award -winning film called

Silence, made by a fellow Catholic, wherein one of the main characters, a Jesuit priest, abandoned the

Church, and as an apostate, when he died, is seen grasping a crucifix, quiet and unknown to anyone but God.

As a friend of Benedictine college, His Excellency Bishop Robert Barron said in his review of the film, it was exactly what the cultural elite want to see in Christianity.

Private, hidden away, and harmless. Our Catholic faith has always been counter -cultural.

Our Lord, along with countless followers, were all put to death for their adherence to her 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.

We fear speaking truth, because now, unfortunately, truth is in the minority. Congress just passed a bill restating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed

Jesus could land you in jail. But make no mistake, before we even attempt to fix any of the issues plaguing society, we must first get our own house in order, and it starts with our leaders.

The bishops and priests appointed by God as our spiritual fathers must be rightly ordered.

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. 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.

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.

Yes, we absolutely should be involved in supporting our parishes, but we cannot be the source for our parish priests to lean on to help with their problems.

Just as we look at the relationship between a father and his son, so too should we look at the relationship between a priest and his people.

It would not be appropriate for me to always be looking to my son for help when it is my job as his father to lead him.

St. Jose Maria Escriva states that priests are ordained to serve and should not yield to temptation to imitate lay people, but to be priests through and through.

Tragically, so many priests revolve much of their happiness from the adulation they receive from their parishioners and in searching for this, they let their guard down and become overly familiar.

This undue familiarity will prove to be problematic every time because as my teammate's girlfriend says, familiarity breeds contempt.

St. Jose Maria continues that some want to see the priest as just another man. That is not so.

They want to find in the priest those virtues proper to every Christian and indeed every honorable man.

Understanding, justice, a life of work, priestly work in this instance, and good manners.

It is not prudent as the laity for us to consume ourselves in becoming amateur theologians so that we can decipher this or that theological teaching, unless of course you are a theology major.

We must be intentional with our focus on our state in life and our own vocation. And for most of us, that's as married men and women.

Still, we have so many great resources at our fingertips that it doesn't take long to find traditional and timeless teachings that haven't been ambiguously reworded for our times.

Plus, there are still many good and holy priests and it's up to us to seek them out. The chaos of the world is unfortunately reflected in the chaos in our parishes and sadly in our cathedrals too.

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.

Because of this, countless people died alone without access to the sacraments and it's a tragedy we must never forget.

As Catholics, we can look to so many examples of heroic shepherds who gave their lives for their people and ultimately the church.

We cannot buy into the lie that the things we experienced during COVID were appropriate. Over the centuries, there have been great wars, great famines, and yes, even great diseases.

All that came with a level of lethality and danger. But in each of those examples, church leaders leaned into their vocations and ensured that their people received the sacraments.

Great saints like St. Damien of Malachi, who knew the dangers of his ministry, stayed for 11 years as a spiritual leader to the leper colonies of Hawaii.

His heroism is looked at today as something set apart and unique, when ideally it should not be unique at all.

For as a father loves his child, so a shepherd should love his spiritual children too. That goes even more so for our bishops, these men who are present -day apostles.

Our bishops once had adoring crowds of people kissing their rings and taking in their every word, but now relegate themselves to a position of inconsequential existence.

Now, when a bishop of a diocese or the bishop's conference as a whole puts out an important document on this matter or that, nobody even takes a moment to read it, let alone follow it.

No, today our shepherds are far more concerned with keeping the doors open to the chancery than they are with saying the difficult stuff out loud.

It seems that the only time you hear from your bishops is when it's time for the annual appeal, whereas we need our bishops to be vocal about the teachings of the church, setting aside their own personal comfort and embracing their cross.

Our bishops are not politicians, but shepherds, so instead of fitting in the world by going along to get along, they too need to stay in their lane and lead.

I say all of this not from a place of anger, as we get the leaders we deserve, but this does make me reflect on staying in my lane and focusing on my own vocation and how

I can be a better father and husband and live in the world but not be of it. Focusing on my vocation while praying and fasting for these men will do more for the church than me complaining about her leaders.

Because there seems to be so much confusion coming from our leaders, there needs to be concrete examples for people to look to in places like Benedictine, a little

Kansas college built high on a bluff above the Missouri River, are showing the world how an ordered,

Christ -centered existence is the recipe for success. You need to look no further than the examples all around this campus, where over the past 20 years, enrollment has doubled, construction and revitalization are a constant part of life, and people, the students, the faculty and staff are thriving.

All right, I can't, I'm sorry, I had myself paused so you couldn't hear me typing. I can't take it anymore,

I got to say something, I got to comment. This guy is on fire. He got nailed for one little clip that everybody saw.

Yeah. But he's saying it all. He's going after the whole banana. What do you think?

Wow, I think there's two things happening here. One, it's like a cognitive dissonance.

One is he doesn't want to criticize his own church, but all he's doing is completely destroying the bishops and their complete, what did he call it?

An inconsequential existence that no one reads or listens to. Yeah, I wrote down, he said, our shepherds are more concerned with keeping the, and he used a

Catholic word for the doors of the church open, right? Our chancellories or something like that, he said.

But yeah, but that's the same thing. That's the same thing us Protestants are complaining about, right? With our gray churches and blue churches.

Man, he's on fire. Okay, we can go back. Do you want to go back or you want to say something else? Yeah, just one other thing about that is he sees how incompetent the leaders are.

And not just incompetent, they're compromising. On the other hand, he's not. He's stepping up and he's blasting the

Church of Nice. He's blasting Biden for doing the sign of the cross at an abortion rally.

He even said that you can't be Catholic and pro -abortion. And the woman thing,

I got to get this out before my small brain loses it. He's going to be criticized in the media right now for telling women that their highest calling is that of being a mother and creating children.

But at the same time, this Super Bowl winning kicker is going to say his highest calling, his vocation, is what?

Fatherhood. Yeah, right. So what's wrong? So context matters sometimes, at least once in a while, right?

Yeah, so there's two major threads that I want to talk about here. One is the fact that what

Butker is saying is amazing. It's what this world needs to hear. And he's saying it because of a biblical morality.

Now the other thing is he's completely destroying the concept of Catholicism because he, by sola scriptura, knows what the hierarchy doesn't.

From the Pope on down, they are not teaching him this. He's rebuking them because the leadership doesn't have it.

It's not of God. So he's destroying Catholicism without realizing it.

He's a little Protestant without knowing it because he's sola scriptura. He's learning this not from them.

He's blasting the hierarchy. He's learning it from God through his word. Well, as you know,

I love to encourage Christian plagiarism, but not worldview squatting. And if you don't know what that means, you've got to go back to last week's episode where Jim Jarrell gave us a great, great term.

Worldview squatting. Mike Jarrell. I'm sorry. Mike Jarrell. Worldview squatting. What a great term.

What a great term. And so we can go back and watch the video again and maybe listen to it a little bit more in the context of, is he worldview squatting?

And what worldview is he squatting in? Right. Yes. So Roman Catholicism is a set of traditions, and it's kind of like a three -legged stool.

You have the Pope, tradition, and the Bible. The problem is the Pope is a leftist

Marxist. The tradition has evolved to centralize power in Rome over the early centuries and then becomes a

Roman Catholic church. And the tradition now is Vatican II. It's a church of nice.

It's all religions and all peoples are equally welcomed by God. There's room for everyone in the church.

That's the tradition of Rome. And he's realizing that that's empty secularism. So the only leg of the stool that Butker has left is the

Scripture, and that's where he's getting it from. So he's not worldview squatting on Christianity, but he's not a true

Catholic. He doesn't follow the Pope. He doesn't follow the tradition. He's realizing now that that's empty and vacuous, and he's calling people to – and he himself is rebuking the bishops because he realizes they don't have it.

Yeah, and for the audience, worldview squatting means that – and correct me if you've got a better way to say it – worldview squatting is taking a value from someone else's worldview and assigning it to your overall worldview.

Yeah, and it's like a Johnny -come -lately thing too. Like a squatter just shows up and all of a sudden for two weeks he's living in someone's house.

They don't realize it. They come home from vacation. They've got a squatter, and it's impossible to kick them out. They act like they've been here forever.

This is mine as if they own it. Well, that's all of the secular humanism and what's taken the culture.

They act like anybody who would question our right to be here is to just be pushed to the side.

But really, they're the ones that are squatting. They're the new Johnny -come -lately on the scene.

Killing babies in the womb, that was never done in Christianity for 2 ,000 years.

In Roman Catholicism, a majority of the people at the Catholic churches or maybe half because there's still a pretty strong pro -life contingent in Catholicism.

But most Catholics that I know are fine with abortion. Sadly, me too, although they have that Joe Biden nuance where they say,

I'm against abortion, but I swore the woman's right to do it. Yeah.

Which is nonsense. That's not a clear worldview at all. Okay, let's go back to this. All right.

Thriving. This didn't happen by chance. In a deliberate movement to embrace traditional

Catholic values, Benedictine has gone from just another liberal arts school with nothing to set it apart to a thriving beacon of light and a reminder to us all that when you embrace tradition, success, worldly and spiritual, will follow.

I am certain the reporters at the AP could not have imagined that their attempt to rebuke and embarrass places and people like those here at Benedictine wouldn't be met with anger, but instead met with excitement and pride.

Not the deadly sin 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.

Reading that article now shared all over the world, we see that in the complete surrender of self and a turning towards Christ, you will find happiness.

Right here in a little town in Kansas, we find many inspiring laypeople using their talents.

President Minnis, Dr. Swofford, and Dr. Zimmer are a few great examples right here on this very campus that will keep the light of Christ burning bright for generations to come.

Being locked in with your vocation and staying in your lane is going to be the surest way for you to find true happiness and peace in this life.

It is essential that we focus on our own state in life, whether that be as a layperson, a priest, or religious.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2024, you are sitting at the edge of the rest of your lives.

Each of you has the potential to leave a legacy that transcends yourselves and this era of human existence.

In the small ways by living out your vocation, you will ensure that God's church continues and the world is enlightened by your example.

For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives.

I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.

How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?

Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but 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.

I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabel, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.

I am on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.

I am beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl

I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all, poll maker.

She is the primary educator to our children. She is the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father.

She is the person that knows me best at my core, and it is through our marriage that, Lord willing, we will both attain salvation.

I say all of this to you because I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God's will in their life.

Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say, heck no.

As a man who gets a lot of praise and has been given a platform to speak to audiences like this one today,

I pray that I always use my voice for God and not for myself. Everything I am saying to you is not from a place of wisdom, but rather a place of experience.

I am hopeful that these words will be seen as those from a man, not much older than you, who feels it is imperative that this class, this generation, and this time in our society must stop pretending that the things we see around us are normal.

Heterodox ideas abound even within Catholic circles, but let's be honest, there is nothing good about playing

God with having children, whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control.

It is only in the past few years that I have grown encouraged to speak more boldly and directly, because as I mentioned earlier,

I have leaned into my vocation as a husband and father and as a man. To the gentlemen here today, part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities.

As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in.

This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the

U .S., and a correlation could be made in their drastically lower violence rates as well. Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.

Do hard things. Never settle for what is easy. You might have a talent that you don't necessarily enjoy, but if it glorifies

God, maybe you should lean into that over something that you might think suits you better. I speak from experience as an introvert who now finds myself as an amateur public speaker and an entrepreneur, something

I never thought I'd be when I received my industrial engineering degree. The road ahead is bright, things are changing, society is shifting, and people young and old are embracing tradition.

Not only has it been my vocation that has helped me and those closest to me, but not surprising to many of you, should be my outspoken embrace of the traditional

Latin mass. I've been very vocal in my love and devotion to the TLM and its necessity for our lives.

But what I think gets misunderstood is that people who attend the TLM do so out of pride or preference.

I can speak to my own experience, but for most people I have come across within these communities, this simply is not true.

I do not attend the TLM because I think I am better than others or for the smells and bells or even for the love of Latin.

I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today.

It is through the TLM that I encountered order and began to pursue it in my own life. Aside from the

TLM itself, too many of our sacred traditions have been relegated to things of the past, when in my parish, things such as ember days, days when we fast and pray for vocations and for our priests, are still adhered to.

The TLM is so essential that I would challenge each of you to pick a place to move where it is readily available.

A lot of people have complaints about the parish or the community, but we should not sacrifice the mass for community.

I prioritize the TLM even if the parish isn't beautiful, the priest isn't great, or the community isn't amazing.

I still go to the TLM because I believe the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more important than anything else.

I say this knowing full well that when each of you rekindle your knowledge and adherence to many of the church's greatest traditions, you will see how much more colorful and alive your life can and should be.

As you move on from this place and enter into the world, know that you will face many challenges. Sadly, I am sure many of you know of the countless stories of good and active members of this community who, after graduation and moving away from the

Benedictine bubble, have ended up moving in with their boyfriend or girlfriend prior to marriage. Some even leave the church and abandon

God. It is always heartbreaking to hear these stories, and there is a desire to know what happened and what went wrong.

What you must remember is that life is about doing the small things well, setting yourself up for success, and surrounding yourself with people who continually push you to be the best version of you.

I say this all the time that iron sharpens iron. It's a great reminder that those closest to us should be making us better.

If you are dating someone who doesn't even share your faith, how do you expect that person to help you become a saint?

If your friend group is filled with people who only think about what you're doing next weekend and are not willing to have those difficult conversations, how can they help sharpen you?

As you prepare to enter into the workforce, it is extremely important that you actually think about the places you are moving to.

Who is the bishop? What kind of parishes are there? Do they offer the TLM and have priests who embrace their priestly vocation?

Cost of living must not be the only arbiter of your choices, for a life without God is not a life at all, and the cost of salvation is worth more than any career.

I'm excited for the future, and I pray that something I have said will resonate as you move on to the next chapter of your life.

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.

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.

I thank God for Benedictine College and for the example it provides to the world. I thank

God for men like President Minnis, who are doing their part for the kingdom. Come to find out, you can have an authentically catholic college and a thriving football program.

Make no mistake, you are entering into mission territory in a post -God world, but you were made for this, and with God by your side and a constant striving for virtue within your vocation, you too can be a saint.

Christ is king to the heights. Wow. That was,

I mean, my goodness, I am blown away actually. Five words.

I thought that was pretty amazing, Jeff. You know, and there is, as he said, there was no fluff in that, and with all that substance,

I say shame on the feminists and the secular humanists for taking him out of context and destroying his beautiful commending of motherhood and femininity.

What do you say? I agree. When he was talking about his wife and how she has embraced her femininity and how she even followed his lead, you know, he got emotional there.

Did you notice that? Oh, it was beautiful. It was awesome. It was so heartfelt. Because there is a beauty to that.

Yeah. That he led religiously. Now, he is leading her down. We can talk about this maybe in a separate part, right?

That the Latin mass and his hope in Catholicism is misplaced. So we'll shut that off to the side.

Put that on the shelf. We'll get back to it, everybody. We'll do that as like a part two or something.

But right now, we have got to celebrate what this man just upheld. Yeah, sure.

What we call traditional, it's not so much traditional. It's biblical ethics. Yes. He called men to be men.

He did. He said, don't just do what your emotions tell you. Your heart wants you to be.

Maybe you're not even that good. Maybe you're really good at something, but you don't really love it that much.

But God has made you great at it. And you should do that hard thing for the sake of your family, of accomplishing, of doing what

God has made you to do. Even if you don't feel like it sometimes. That is such a countercultural message, but I love it.

He's telling men to be men. And he tells them not to accept what the culture is saying to men, which is that they need to be more like women.

He has a strong understanding of the difference between men and women. And he didn't tell women.

I mean, the secularists and the people talking down against him act like he tore women up and said, you need to take that degree, rip it up, and go be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of your life.

Not what he said. Not even close. But he did it in such a way that he lifted up motherhood as the higher value.

And I'll say it again. I think we said it already. Just as he lifted up his own calling to be a father as a higher calling than being a

Super Bowl player. Right? Yeah, he's got a couple of Super Bowl rings. But he considers his role in the home.

I think for him, he has that order of God, family, vocation. He's not going to twist that.

And this is very threatening. Very threatening to the left. Because their whole worldview is built on tearing down the patriarchy.

It's all about undoing what God has ordered. And really, that's what you can tell.

He's just like this young guy who himself, he's probably what, in his mid or late 20s? I don't know how old he is.

He looks pretty young to me. He looks 20s to me. To be an NFL player, you're usually in your 20s because they don't have long careers.

Kickers last a little longer. But he's young. But he's a young guy.

And he's looking out at this world that he's been born into and he's rejecting the disorder. He wants an ordered world where God has made things to be as they are.

And he thinks he's finding that in the Latin mass and that as well. Well, let's go there.

Let's go there. I mean, we lifted him up. We lifted everything he did up. I mean, people could always ask questions.

If they have questions about his speech, they could send them into a podcast at CornerstoneSJ .org,

and we could answer those questions. But, I mean, what else can we say? It was just brilliant. Yeah, it was.

And that's what we have to focus on. This was the speech that upheld masculinity and femininity, and he praised his wife.

This was Proverbs 31, come to life. With the emotion, with the love, he lifted her up for the beauty of God's design in her.

And she ultimately follows his lead because that's what choked him up about it. Yeah, Proverbs 31.

I have my daughter excited about Friday because Friday is the 31st, and we read the

Proverbs, that day's proverb, every day. And the 31st doesn't come every month either.

So, yeah, so I told her to get excited about that. But anyway, it's the perfect woman,

Proverbs 31, if you're listening and haven't read Proverbs 31, the second half anyway. And it's not a weak woman.

It's not a woman whose life is only centered around the kids.

Man, that's what, I'll tell you what, there's one side of the culture that hates motherhood completely, and then there's the opposite ditch, right, where parents fall into worshiping their kids and mothers fall into worshiping their children and their whole life is just the kids so that they don't even know their husbands when their kids, when they become empty nesters.

So that's another ditch that the society pushes, right? Absolutely, yeah, that is.

All right, so let's make a transition, hard break. Okay, hard break. Are we going

Latin mass or no? We're going to go Latin mass. Let's go Latin mass. And so what Butker has done here is he's desired tradition so much that he's grabbed hold of this niche expression of tradition that came from the

Middle Ages, you know, the Latin mass. Make Catholicism great again. Yeah. But he's putting his hope in, this is such a folly, just on a practical level, think about this.

Yeah. If you were to go down to St. Petersburg, Florida and cross the Skyway Bridge, you come to Bayside Church, big

Southern Baptist Church, right? Tens of thousands of people. If you were to go to Dallas, you'd have multiple churches with tens of thousands of evangelicals who have the same biblical worldview that Harrison Butker just advanced.

Mega churches all across this country. Conservative churches like the one we're in here, right?

We're just in a very blue state. We're in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Cornerstone Church, 300, 400 people are connected with us here.

And all of us hold that same worldview, right? And Butker is telling these college students that you should find wherever you can these few dots on the map where they do the traditional

Latin mass. Okay. There is no hope of turning

America back to God and values, the Christian values through the tradition.

So just on a practical level, there's such folly in this idea. He's won in 10 ,000, right?

Yeah. And there's not a movement, there's not a groundswell. There are some people that are like, oh, it's embraced tradition. And there is some movement towards the traditional

Latin mass. But there's no hope for a culture in the traditional Latin mass.

Right. That is the most absurd folly that could be expressed.

I'm going to guess, and remember, I'm a former Catholic, and I'm going to guess that in association with that Latin mass, there are other things that they do that come out of historical

Christianity that come from being in the Bible. Yeah.

I mean, if you're going to engage today, maybe not 100 years ago, but if you're going to engage today in a

Latin mass, I think maybe you might have a Latin Bible at home. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. So they're reading - You might be reading the Bible? They're learning biblical ethics probably from an

English translation of the Bible. Right. Yeah. It might even be Latin on one side and English on the other.

I mean, who knows? But I'll bet you they're getting in the Bible. Absolutely. Yeah. And here's the point.

They need to swim the Tiber River away from Rome and come join the Reformation because there's hope here on this side of the

Tiber River. But here's the big problem that he has. He evidently can't get past this cognitive dissonance.

His pope is not like him. His pope is a leftist Marxist. His pope is saying in 2013, who am

I to judge when asked about homosexuality? Now, did you hear Butker take a shot at Pride Month?

Oh, yeah. Pride and debauchery and that kind of thing? Yeah. That he learns from the scripture.

His pope now is blessing same -sex marriage. The other day, there was a report that came out from a few of the cardinals that were in a meeting with the pope, where behind the doors,

Pope Francis used a slur about gay people. It was an Italian word like frocagine or something like that.

I can't speak Italian. Sounds like a bread. Yeah. Yeah, it does. But it means queerness.

And then the very next day, when that lead… Yeah. When that leaked, he puts out a statement to the culture.

The pope never intended to express himself in these homophobic terms. This pope is completely a slave of the culture.

Yeah. The tradition now is secular humanism. The pope is the poster boy for it.

He really is. Homophobia, blessing same -sex marriages, who am I to judge? That's the leader of the

Catholic Church. So until Butker rejects Roman Catholicism, he's still part of the problem.

Yeah. You know, that's a great point. He is part of the problem. Now, I'm so now…

All right, so real quick, and correct me if I'm wrong. I want to just do a little personal thing.

I grew up Catholic, Catholic high school, Catholic college. I had a Catholic priest at my first wedding.

Flew him in from Pittsburgh. I was all into wearing a t -shirt, but no depth.

And now today, and please correct me if I'm wrong, as I witness to my Catholic friends and family, and almost all my family is

Catholic, I try and tell them, I don't want to convert you. I want to convince you to read your

Bible, to read your scriptures, because you have the right Jesus, but you've got to get to know him.

And my intention on doing it is not that I… And they all know this. It's not that I don't want to convert them.

I sure do, but I know I don't really have the power to do that. The Holy Spirit does, and the Holy Spirit is going to speak through the scriptures.

So I'm praying that when they read the scriptures, if they need to be converted, they will. But so here's the question.

Are any… And I know other people are asking this, so Pastor Jeff, we need your input. Are any

Catholics saved? Can they be saved? Absolutely. Now, I wouldn't use that language of I don't want to convert you.

I would go ahead and say, yeah, I would like to see you converted. Now, of course, it's the Holy Spirit that does the conversion.

But what they're going to take that to mean is that you don't want to see them leave Catholicism. And I think you should be very directly calling them to convert to biblical

Christianity and out of Roman Catholicism. Now, but to your question, yeah, there are saved Catholics.

It's despite the Roman Catholic doctrine, not because of it. I don't think

Butker is likely a saved man because he's still talking about attaining salvation. He's hoping in the mass, in the sacraments.

So if you read the book of Galatians, to put your hope in a work, even a sacerdotal work where a priest is doing something for you.

So in the traditional Latin mass, which he so highly values, what they have is this alter

Christos, this another Christ, who is the priest who makes propitiation on the altar, representing

Christ in propitiation on the altar. And that altar is the mass.

So we call that transubstantiation, where they believe that the body and blood are physically present there.

But they're also sacrificing Christ. He's making atonement. He's the propitiatory sacrifice on the altar.

So if your hope is in this sacerdotal work, this work of a priest on your behalf to present

Christ, and you then go and take that, your hope is in another

Christ, an alter Christos, 2 Corinthians 10, 3 and 4, and 11, chapter 11, 3 and 4 talk about it as well.

This false doctrine, this false Christ cannot save the book of Galatians.

So if you think about this, Paul uses his strongest language in all of the Bible against those who

Judaize the gospel. They were saying you must be circumcised in order to be saved. You just need to add this one word, kind of become

Jewish, and then you can be justified. Well, Paul says, let this person be anathema.

And if anybody follows that teaching, he is cut off from Christ. He has fallen from grace.

Galatians 5, 4. And then he tells those who teach these kind of things, I wish they would go and emasculate themselves.

Galatians 5, 4. We know what that means. You got to be circumcised to be saved.

And Paul uses strong rhetoric to say, well, if you're going to teach that way, just go ahead and cut the whole thing off.

Cut it all off. Don't cut the tip off. Cut it all off. That's hard. Why would

Paul use that kind of strong language? Because it's a gospel. It's another gospel that cannot save.

Yeah, amen. So let me ask you this. The traditional Latin and Mass cannot save. And so someone who's trusting in it can.

But are there saved Catholics? Yeah, it's despite Roman Catholicism. They're hoping in Christ alone because they've rejected the

CCC, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the 1990s. They don't hold to the view that a person must maintain their justification by the sacraments.

They themselves have been born again, and they're rejecting their – they don't really believe in the power of the

Pope and his office, his ability to speak from his seat ex cathedra. So there are individual

Catholics who, for whatever reason, still go to Catholic Mass. Usually it's family reason and tradition and stuff like that.

Yeah. But they reject the doctrine of their own church. Well, there are a bunch of worldview squatters in my family.

And if you're watching, I love you all. I do. I love you. I love you. And I do have some Catholic friends that watch this as well and who have heard me say what

I just said. But I have two questions for you. I wanted to ask you about that CCC. You said, is there a big doctrinal shift in the 1990s?

Did you just reference? Well, it gets solidified there, but it actually happens in the 1950s.

Okay. 1954, I want to guess. It was Vatican II. Oh, okay.

Vatican II. You go back to 17 – I mean, 1446.

Right. No, 1546. Sorry, I'm getting my dates confused in my brain.

But 1546 is Council of Trent. And there they anathematize anyone who says that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.

Yeah. They pronounce damnation upon the reformers. In the 1950s, they turned that entirely on its head.

And not only do they call Protestants separated brethren who are still saved through Christ, just not – they're separated from the mother church, but they're still to be accepted.

It even goes farther than that and accepts Muslims and Buddhists and other religions as coming through Christ without knowing him.

Did those happen at the same time? Because Council of Trent was when they got – the Protestants, anyone accepting the five solos got anathematized.

Yeah. But was it later on that they did the inconsistent teaching that Muslims and Hindus, if they're faithful to their own beliefs, is that a different time?

That's Vatican II. That's Vatican II. So the tradition completely turned – they say they follow tradition, but it completely flips.

Yeah. In 1546, if you don't go through the mother church, through Roman Catholicism and the sacraments, you're damned.

And they even pronounce – it might be the ninth article where they pronounce damnation on Protestants.

Well, it's just like any big bureaucracy that changes the rules midstream and they forget about the rules that they had already made, and they leave them on the books, and they're not consistent.

They make no sense. But they can never overturn. They have to – they say that's still true, but we're making these nuances over here because when the pope speaks, it's kind of like the rules of the

Medes and the Persians that can't be undone in the days of Xerxes, right?

When in Esther, he gives a command that cannot be reversed. So he can't quite reverse it, but then he can issue a new decree that goes forth and allows the

Jews to defend themselves and to gather together in case anybody comes against them and slaughter their enemies.

In the same way, Vatican II doesn't claim to reverse Trent. They claim to say, oh, yeah, we still hold the

Council of Trent, but this is also true over here, and it's fundamentally incompatible.

And hence the reason we hardly get any Catholic apologists debating anymore because it's so difficult.

Yeah. And would they have to defend this pope? I think they have to defend this pope.

Very hard to do. I don't know who's in charge of his public relations campaign, but the dude's underpaid, that's for sure.

Oh, my gosh. I don't care what he makes. That's amazing.

So let's talk about how we witness to our Catholic friends and family and stuff like that again because I have more questions than I bet you and other people do too.

So certainly people always want to know, am

I saved? Right? And personally, I've tried to stay away from that because it's always gotten me in trouble.

I don't want to be. I'm not the Holy Spirit. I can't judge someone's heart. But what I hear you saying is focus on what can trip you up.

Focus on those things that aren't merely sins, but they are blasphemous or heretical.

Is that a good way to look at it? Yeah, that's close. I would rather say believe whatever the word of God says about the dangers to your soul.

So there are certain works or any work, if you put your hope in works, you lose the gospel.

Grace is no longer grace as soon as you add work to it. And religion is particularly dangerous because the pride of that, the so -called justification that a person gets, it's really self -justification.

It's a sense of pride within a person that God will accept me because I do this.

But that work that you're hoping in will not deliver. And anybody who puts hope in themselves, in their own work, in their own righteousness, has yet to come to that place that Jesus describes of the sinner where he's beating his chest and saying,

God, have mercy on me, the sinner. The path to salvation is to come to an end of your self -righteousness, an end of your hope in works.

And the person who has not done that has not been saved. And I don't want to teach them because I think

I can misspeak when I'm talking to someone and I can say, hey, don't put your faith in works, put your faith in these works.

And I don't want to do that. You can mistakenly, and even if you don't mean that, you can sound like that because what you're saying is, don't put your faith in any works.

Put your faith only in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. Don't put your faith in another work.

It just sounds convoluted sometimes. I think you say it so much better. The Scripture says it way better than either you or I are saying it.

So Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. By grace, you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in that. Listen, I once had a debate with a

Roman Catholic apologist. Okay. A guy who debated James White. His name was Gary Machuda. Oh, okay.

So Machuda and I debated at Hotel ML, which was the former. It's on Route 73 now.

It's got a different name. But it was one of the big hotels and they had a big lobby and conference room.

So we had a few hundred people out there, Catholics on one side, Protestants on the other. And the debate was, does

Romans, the book of Romans, teach salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, apart from works?

Wow. Yeah. You know, based on Ephesians 2, 8, 9, you said, well, it's a slam dunk. Yeah. Roman Catholic apologist says, well, based on James 2, faith without works is dead.

And it seems to be a contradiction there. And so we opened up to Romans chapter 3.

Yeah. 21 to 28. First 10? Just kidding.

Oh, yeah. That's next time when we listen to what the Pope says about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Contradicts Romans 3, 10.

But in Romans 3, 21 to 28, Paul will explicitly say that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, apart from works.

And what this apologist argued is, well, what he's actually saying is it's the works of the law.

Capital L, the works of Moses, circumcision, trusting in the law of God.

But that doesn't mean that God can't later give new works that you have to do, namely the sacraments of the

Catholic Church. But here's where I'm very convinced that the debate was won. I made the point, just like in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, that what

God eliminates. So there's two major threads that I want to talk about here. One is the fact that what

Butker is saying is amazing. It's what this world needs to hear. And he's saying it because of a biblical morality.

Now, the other thing is he's completely destroying the concept of Catholicism because he, by sola scriptura, knows what the hierarchy doesn't, from the

Pope on down. They are not teaching him this. He's rebuking them because the leadership doesn't have it.

It's not of God. So he's destroying Catholicism without realizing it.

He's a little Protestant without knowing it because he's sola scriptura. He's learning this not from them.

He's blasting the hierarchy. He's learning it from God through his word. In saying that salvation is by grace alone apart from works is boasting.

Boasting is the enemy. So in Ephesians 2 verse 9, many people miss this part.

It's not a result of works. Why? So that no one may boast.

And since, Joe, you pulled up, why don't you pull up Romans chapter 3 verse 28.

Romans 3 and 27, actually. Start at 27 through 31.

Romans 3, 27. Read it for us. 27 to 31. Then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded. By what kind of law? By law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. We hold apart.

Keep going? Yeah, read it right to 31. Or is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

So the law of faith is held in contradistinction from the law of works.

And it can't just mean the law of Moses, capital L, because he's including

Jew and Gentile in this. The Gentile having the law of God, moral principles of God, written on their consciences.

He gets to this in Romans chapter 2. It's written on their hearts, even without the law of Moses.

So the distinction is between the law of faith and the law of works. By the law of faith, one comes humbly, beating his chest, have mercy on me, the sinner.

I have nothing to bring to this table. I look to Christ alone to save me. And the law of faith justifies because God will accept the one who has humbled himself, come to an end of himself, and put his hope entirely in the

Son of God. And God will impute the righteousness of Christ to the person who has faith in Christ.

There's a union with Christ. That's the law of faith. But the law of works is still boasting.

And this is where Harrison Butker gets it wrong. He's teaching people to put their hope in the traditional

Latin mass, in the work of priests, making this work on the altar, and doing this tradition, obeying this tradition, submitting oneself to this tradition.

And with that comes, of course, a whole host of other works. When you commit a mortal sin, there are certain prescribed indulgences or penances that have to be accomplished to get rid of that, or even a venial sin has other things.

Even the recitation of the Our Fathers or Hail Marys, any number of these things, are works that a person does to maintain their own justification.

And it's boasting. It is vain boasting before the Lord to try to establish one's own righteousness.

It's not just Ephesians 2 .8 .9, Romans 3 .21 -31. It's all through the

Bible. It's in Titus 3 .5. Again and again, we're taught that anyone who tries to do this has fallen from grace.

Galatians 5 .4. So often I get asked, Oh, so Joe, just your version of Christianity, that's the one that's right, and everybody else has it wrong.

And what you're saying is, no, that's not the case at all. It's everyone who has their faith in Christ alone.

That's it. But they can be in this distinctive or that distinctive. Who cares? It doesn't matter.

And they can even be a Catholic. But don't be tripped up by trusting in your

Latin Bible, your Latin Vulgate. Don't get tripped up by trusting in getting communion every week.

When I say that they can be a Catholic and be saved, that means that they've rejected

Catholicism in their heart. They've rejected the Catholic, quote -unquote, way of salvation because it doesn't save.

They're still going there, which has followed. Well, I don't think most of them know the Catholic way of salvation.

Right. I read the CCC. Yeah, right. They don't know the doctrine. And they may have heard three different parts, and then some priest just said, well, just show up and ask.

We'll take care of you. We'll tell you what it means. And that's it. So if they're a blank slate, because I think there's a lot of blank slates there, and that's why

I asked this. If they're a blank slate and you convince them to just put their faith in Christ, and they agree.

All right. If you go to a Latin mass, assuming you don't speak Latin, right? Right. You, at that point, don't have any understanding of what's being said.

Right. You're just listening to essentially babble. If you go to an

English -speaking mass, and you hear what the Catholic priests say, and they teach Roman Catholic doctrine, if you are saved, you should hear what they're saying, and see the disconnect between that and the

Bible, and you should be provoked in your spirit. You should not desire to bring other people under the influence of false teaching.

So anyone who's continuing in Roman Catholicism is demonstrating that they're not walking in the spirit of the living

God. They're not reading their Bible, understanding the word of God. They are deceived because they're bringing other people into that deception.

They're promoting that deception. They're making union with that deception by going to it.

If they refuse to come out from it, I'm not going to assume they're saved. No, assume nothing.

Here's the opposite though. Right. By a principle, if I say that there are probably many

Roman people in Roman Catholicism who have been born again on the inside, that's saying that there's an inconsistency in their life, there's an immaturity in their walk, and I'm sure

God does have saved people in the Catholic Church. But to any individual who is still going to a

Roman Catholic Church, I would read Ephesians 2 to 10 to them, following up on Ephesians 2, 8, 9.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. If you are still promoting

Roman Catholicism, I am going to tell you I don't think that you're saved.

Right. I don't think that you individually are saved. Why would I give you an assurance of salvation when you're participating in a very dark work?

Roman Catholicism is dark works. Yeah, it is.

It is. The problem is I know a lot of them, and so many of them are the...

I went to an apologist session. There's three kinds of Catholics, and the one kind is the T -shirt wearing.

They just wear a T -shirt. They have no idea what they're even doing. And it's encouraged because I think a lot of priests are just...

They are aware that the inconsistencies exist. I mean, just like you're talking about the

Mass, the Mass, what actually happens there, is representative of theology that no longer officially exists.

I think they got rid of the theology that says that they're sacrificing Christ over and over again at the altar, which is what they used to say, which was...

No, they haven't gotten rid of that. I thought they have. I thought that's no longer part of the... They don't say that.

If you talk to a priest, they won't say that, or they won't acknowledge it. But when you go to a Mass, that's what's happening.

That's the very essence of what they say is happening at the quote -unquote altar, making propitiation.

Yeah. It's inconsistent and arbitrary, which is always the philosophy of the fool.

Yeah. Well, what ends up happening is people hide things, but the Roman Catholic Church does not repent.

So it's still in... Because here's the issue. Once a pope has pronounced something ex cathedra, that from his seat, not everything the pope says, but when he's made statements ex cathedra, there is no turning back on that.

They cannot renounce. It's like the law of the Medes and Persians. The same thing with an ecumenical council.

Wow. So they can't just say, we no longer hold to Trent. Vatican II didn't do that.

It never said that we are repealing the presentation of the Mass and the understanding of the

Mass as defined at Trent. It can't do that. They still hold those doctrines.

So yeah, they might become more secretive in it because it's not as popular, and Protestants point it out, and they don't want to put that up.

It's the same thing with Mormonism. They don't put a lot of their teachings about Joseph Smith and polygamy and eternal marriage.

They don't put that front and center because it's not popular anymore. That's still official Mormon doctrine.

Sure. Yeah. Joe's witnesses will tell you they're going to shun you when you back out 20 years from now.

Right. Yeah. Man, what a great episode, Jeff.

We got to start winding this back and bringing it down, but we talked about the

Pope, and he just did a 60 -minutes interview. What do you think? Should we do the Pope next week?

I think we need to because maybe there's some Roman Catholics that are hearing this that are probably offended at me for saying that that's not a way of salvation.

Hopefully, they're willing to listen and consider. Well. But let's keep pressing on this because maybe the

Spirit is working in them to see, wait a minute, this Pope is not a spokesperson of God. Yeah. He's not a little father.

Call no one on earth father, and Pope Papa means father, but Jesus says not to do that.

That's right. It's a high place that needs to be torn down. Speaking of high places, when you see a brother down, lift him up.