Manage Account

<p>Regarding Harrison Butker’s recent <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine">commencement speech at Benedictine College</a>, I’m inclined to agree that a great deal of the controversy surrounding the talk wasn’t over what the Kansas City Chiefs kicker <em>said</em>, but over <a href="https://emilystimpsonchapman.substack.com/p/the-heresies-of-the-manosphere-part-db1">what exactly he<em> meant</em></a>. (Full disclosure: Butker is my favorite player on my hometown team, and he deserved the MVP award in every Super Bowl the Chiefs appeared in. Yes, including the one they lost.)</p>
<p>For instance, were his remarks about there being “nothing natural about Catholic birth control” a reference to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/catholic-contraception">contraception or NFP</a>? When he said that his wife &#8220;would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,&#8221; was he implying that <i>every</i> woman&#8217;s life doesn&#8217;t truly start until that point? It’s so easy for people to read or hear the same words and come to different interpretations.*</p>
<p>But I think that all Catholics can agree on the true theme of the speech: vocation. From the Latin word for “calling,” vocation is Catholic jargon for the idea that God is inviting you to live in a certain way. As <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/vocations/documents/20230430-messaggio-60-gm-vocazioni.html">Pope Francis</a> has observed, there’s always something <em>invitational</em> about God’s call:</p>
<blockquote><p>Vocation is “the interplay between divine choice and human freedom,” a dynamic and exciting relationship between God and the human heart. The gift of vocation is like a divine seed that springs up in the soil of our existence, opens our hearts to God and to others, so that we can share with them the treasure we ourselves have found.</p></blockquote>
<p>We respond to God’s call in our life not because we’re forced to, but because we believe that God knows and loves us perfectly and has good plans for us. As Butker put it, “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.”</p>
<p>We can think about “vocation” in three levels. At the broadest level, it’s easy to discern God’s vocation for our lives: each of us is called to love, to be holy, and to be saints (CCC 1533, 1998, 2392). More particularly, some of us are called to pursue the vocation to holiness by a particular vocation like marriage, or priesthood, or celibacy, or religious life (CCC 908-945). And at the most granular level, we should be discerning God’s will in our life <em>each day</em>.</p>
<p>Pursuing our vocation is rewarding but it’s often not easy. In <a href="https://youtu.be/Qm1jR2b398k?t=198">interviews</a>, Butker has described some of the sacrifices he has experienced as a working father: from putting the phone away in order to be present to his family, to getting up early on Sundays to  have Mass and family time before the afternoon game.</p>
<p>Often, vocation includes our career pursuits. But other times, being faithful to our vocation can require professional sacrifices that the world doesn’t understand. I left behind a career as a lawyer to go to seminary to discern priesthood. And—in an experience to which I know many homemakers can relate—I had well-meaning people who worried that I would “waste” my law degree. That’s a bad view of both education (a college education should be more than job training) and vocation. Pursuing God’s call may be costly, but it’s never wasteful.</p>
<p>Those of us similarly tempted to judge smart women who choose to marry, have children, and stay at home should resist that temptation. In his 1910 book <em>What’s Wrong with the World</em>, G.K. Chesterton observed a strange paradox: that society praised women for caring for other people’s children (for instance, as a schoolteacher) while denigrating women who care for<em> their own</em> children. This led him to ask,</p>
<blockquote><p>How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.</p></blockquote>
<p>In different words, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.html">Pope St. John Paul II cautioned</a> us against this same type of thinking:</p>
<blockquote><p>The mentality which honors women more for their work outside the home than for their work within the family must be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem and love women with total respect for their personal dignity, and that society should create and develop conditions favoring work in the home.</p></blockquote>
<p>Some women are called to work outside of the home, and in doing so, they’re serving God and their families. That’s wonderful. Other women desire, and are called to, serve God and their families within the home, and this fidelity is something that should be praised and encouraged.</p>

Harrison Butker and Vocations

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<p><strong><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'segoe ui', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'helvetica neue', sans-serif">DAY 73</span></strong></p>
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<p><strong>CHALLENGE</strong></p>
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<p>“What proof do you have that God exists?”</p>
<p><strong>DEFENSE</strong></p>
<p>One popular proof proceeds from the existence of change in the universe.</p>
<p>The argument can be framed this way:</p>
<p>1. Some things in the world change.
2. Everything that changes is caused to do so.<br/>
3. Nothing is its own cause.<br/>
4. Therefore, things that change are caused to do so by something else. 5. There cannot be an infinite regress of such causes.<br/>
6. Therefore, there is an ultimate, unchanging cause of change.<br/>
7. God is the ultimate, changeless cause of change<br/>
8. Therefore, God exists.</p>
<p>The premises of this argument are lines 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. The conclusions (lines 4, 6, and 8) follow from them.</p>
<p>Line 1 is proved by observation: we see constant change in the world around us.</p>
<p>Line 2 is a truth of metaphysics. It is also verified by observation. Whenever we see something change, there is a cause for this change. Line 3 is a truth of metaphysics. The idea of one thing ultimately being its own cause is incoherent.</p>
<p>Line 5 is a truth of metaphysics. Consider an analogy: if a painting is being made then paint is being applied to a canvas. The paint is moved by the bristles of a brush. The bristles are moved by the wood of the first inch of the handle to which they are attached. The wood of the first inch of the handle is moved by the wood of the second inch, which is moved by the wood of the third inch. However, the handle cannot go on forever. Ultimately, the handle is moved by an artist. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest “that a brush can paint by itself, provided it has a very long handle” (Antonin Sertillanges, quoted in Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and His Nature, 265). In the same way, there cannot be an infinite regress of simultaneous causes.</p>
<p>Line 8 is true by definition.</p>
<p><strong>TIP</strong></p>
<p>This is a version of St. Thomas Aquinas’s “first way” of demonstrating God’s existence (ST I:2:3). It’s sometimes called the argument from “motion,” since Aquinas refers to what we call change as motion.</p>
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The Argument from Change

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<p><strong>DAY 302</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHALLENGE</strong></p>
<p>“There is no such thing as mortal sin.”</p>
<p><strong>DEFENSE</strong></p>
<p>The concept of mortal sin is clearly taught in Scripture.</p>
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<p>First, the language of the doctrine is drawn from Scripture itself: “If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrong-doing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” (1 John 5:16–17).</p>
<p>The phrase here translated “mortal” (Greek, pros thanaton) literally means “unto death.” It can be understood to mean a sin that causes spiritual death, a sin so grave that it causes physical death, or grave sin continued to the point of death. In any case, the text envisions the possibility of a Christian (a “brother”) sinning this way.</p>
<p>A full exegesis of this passage is beyond what we can cover, but the New Testament indicates Christians can commit sins costing them salvation. Paul warns: “Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain” (1 Cor. 15:1–2). This indicates it is possible for Christians to believe the gospel in vain. Here Paul names one cause for this—failure to adhere to the gospel.</p>
<p>Elsewhere he is more specific, saying: “Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9–10). The fact that Paul felt the need to warn his Christian audience against deception on this indicates both that Christians can commit sins costing them salvation and that they could deceive themselves on this point.</p>
<p>Many similar New Testament passages could be cited, but we should note that the need to avoid mortal sin is stressed by our Lord: “If you would enter life, keep the commandments. . . . You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:17–19).</p>
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Mortal Sin

Nobody goes to the movies anymore

Weight loss drugs

Crisis of institutions

Migration

Rise of AI

<p>The Flannel Panel continues its 2025 year-in-review by examining major cultural and technological shifts, including the collapse of moviegoing, the explosion of weight-loss drugs, the growing crisis of trust in institutions, and the ongoing debates over migration. The panel also tackles the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and what these trends mean for society, culture, and the future.</p>
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