It's Monday, May 20, 2024.

I'm Albert Moeller and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

You know, most colleges would like to think that every once in a while someone would take

note of a commencement address given at the college.

That's usually not the case. And especially it's rare that you would have, say, a commencement address given at a small Catholic institution in rural Kansas make national headlines.

But that's exactly what happened in recent days when Harrison

Bucker, three-time Super Bowl champion kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, went to Benedictine

College in Achison, Kansas and delivered a commencement address.

Now in one sense, the college knew that some kind of controversy was likely to happen, and

that's because Harrison Bucker had given a commencement address a year ago at

Georgia Tech. That's his alma mater and where he played also on the football team.

On that occasion Harrison Bucker had also articulated a conservative Catholic

understanding of marriage and the family and had encouraged the young people at Georgia

tech to understand the priority of being husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and

he underlined the fact that there are different roles for men and women.

Well that was Georgia Tech and that was then.

This is Benedictine College and this is now.

Now putting it all together it is clear that the national media may have been in one sense

just waiting for this. On the other hand, it's also true that Harrison

Bucker took the opportunity to make headlines knowing that he was likely to do so.

Now don't hear that as a word of criticism. In the case of what he actually said in his

commencement address, what you have here is traditional Catholic

...