Note that Harrison Butker ended up with Kansas City not Carolina.
National Catholic Register, Trent Beattie: Harrison Butker: “Our natural mothers point out things that we miss, and they have a deep concern for us. Mary takes this to a new level and, as our spiritual mother, always wants us to be united with the work of her Son. I find this particularly special in regard to men. Men are supposed to protect women, so when a woman (Mary) is protecting a man (like me), it’s like a mother protecting her little son. When a man prays the Rosary, he’s humbling himself and becoming like a little child, just as Christ said we all have to be in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Little children are always around their mothers, and the same is true spiritually.” Story is here.
And there’s more about Butker. He is devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass:
“I was googling Mass times and looked at diocesan parishes with the Latin Mass,” he said, “because I thought if they are offering the Latin Mass, I know the liturgy was going to be done well.”
When asked about why the liturgy needs to be reverent, Butker said, “The summit of our faith is the Eucharist. That’s what makes us Catholic. You become Catholic because you believe in the Real Presence. A priest who celebrates the liturgy well believes what he is doing.”
Butker is preparing to enter his third season with the Chiefs and, along with his wife Isabelle and their newborn son, James, he still claims St. Mary’s as his parish. But Butker has found that he no longer wishes to simply attend the Sunday Mass.
“I’ve noticed that it is very difficult for priests to have time to teach and coordinate altar servers. There was a need to have boys and young men to serve, so I volunteered. Now I work with Father Matthew [Bartulica] to coordinate the servers at Mass. All these boys are just finding out about the Mass and tradition and they are really liking it.”
Recently, Butker has forged a friendship with Father Shawn Tunink, the parochial vicar of St. Michael’s in Leawood, KS—just a few minutes from the Butker family home. Butker discovered that Father Shawn had been celebrating the Extraordinary Form privately and offered to serve his Masses, which were celebrated in the church but without any public announcement being made. News began to spread by word of mouth, though, and within a few weeks a sizable group had found themselves at St. Michael’s on Monday evening.
In fact, only four months since the Monday Masses began, Butker helped organize and serve the first Solemn Mass in the Extraordinary Form ever offered at St. Michael’s. The Mass was on the Feast of the Annunciation this past March, and the attendance went from their usual crowd of forty to over three-hundred fifty persons, including a full choir which sang William Byrd’s “Mass for Four Voices.” Read Father Aaron Williams article here.
