(LifeSiteNews) – A Catholic Super Bowl-winning kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs said he would rather leave the NFL than take a coronavirus shot.
Harrison Butker said that the Chiefs were more accommodating to personal decisions about vaccines and masks than what he had heard about other teams.
“I don’t think we should be in a country…where we’re having to decide…do I, do I have to take this thing, do I have to put this thing on my face just to…get by and kind of live like a normal a normal person,” Butker said on the March 20 episode of Breakaway, a sports show sponsored by Turning Point USA and hosted by Jon Root.
He said a lot of players felt they “didn’t have a choice” when it came to COVID jab-or-testing protocols. “It was almost like you have to do these things, you got to follow these protocols, or else you’re not going to have a job and you’re going to get cut.”
Butker said he and his wife were “fully okay with [him] stepping away from football,” if it came to that. “I’m going to stick to my principles, I’m not going to compromise, and if this is my last season then so be it.”
“I think…in some ways I was an example for a lot of the guys, like, ‘wow, you know, maybe I should have stood up a little bit more,’” Butker suggested.
He told Root that he prioritizes faith and family over football.
“Football isn’t my life, it’s my job, I love it….but you know I’m a child of God and I’m a husband and father and that comes before football,” Butker, who attends and serves at the Latin Mass, told Root.
He said he is “prepared to step away and look for another means to provide for the family.”
‘I’m just on the sideline praying the rosary’ at NFL games
After discussing vaccine and mask requirements further, Root asked Butker about his faith.
He shared that while at Georgia Tech he stopped going to Mass but returned after a teammate encouraged him to. He said he often prays the rosary on the sidelines when he is nervous.
“As a Catholic I’m just on the sideline praying the rosary,” Butker said. He said he prayed for the “ability to be calm, to recognize that it’s a blessing to even be here in front of all these people.”
Root, a Protestant, asked Butker about going to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). The Chiefs kicker had invited Root with him to go to a TLM in New York.
Butker said he started serving at the TLM and “[fell] in love with it.”
After serving at the TLM, Butker said he “started kind of understanding all of the reasons why [the Mass] got changed [in the 1960s] and probably why it shouldn’t have gotten changed.”
“I love going to the Traditional Latin Mass. That’s where I go with my wife and the kids,” he told Root. “It’s definitely different but I think there is this beauty of going.”
“It is the sacrifice of the Mass, but you’re going to this event that that people in the 400s, 500s were experiencing,” said Butker. “It really connects you to all these great saints.”
“I like the traditional aspects of that because I think right now like we live in a world where everything’s just so fast-paced,” Root responded. “People, when they think about going to church and sitting down for like an hour plus, they think that’s the craziest thing.”
Butker concluded the show by saying that masculinity is under attack and that his marriage is not a “contract.”
“It’s a beautiful covenant,” Butker said. He wants to continue to use his platform to highlight the importance of fatherhood.
“It starts with the head of the household, which is the father, the husband of the family,” Butker said.
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