(ANALYSIS) Early in the coronavirus pandemic, Catholic clergy — along with pastors in many other traditions — struggled with secular authorities or even their own leaders while trying to provide sacred rites at the heart of their faith.

Churches were locked. Some priests turned to open-air confessions, even drive-thru lanes. In some cities, priests in hazmat suits were allowed to offer last rites, usually without family members present. Some officials, secular and sacred, were more flexible than others.

A network of Catholic activists wrote an urgent plea: “Bishops, we, your faithful flock, implore you to do everything you can to make the sacraments more available. ... Something is terribly wrong with a culture that allows abortion clinics and liquor stores to remain open but shuts down places of worship.”

This bitter divide resurfaced during the May 11 Benedictine College commencement speech by Harrison Butker, a three-time Super Bowl champion from the nearby Kansas City Chiefs. While remarks about women and family life dominated headlines, most of the placekicker's 20-minute address focused on divisions inside Catholicism.

Cultural chaos is “in our parishes, and sadly, in our cathedrals, too,” said Butker. “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.”

Thus, many Catholics have simply stopped listening to bishops they believe are acting like politicians instead of spiritual fathers, he claimed. “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.”

While expressing sympathy with Butker's concerns, Chris Stefanick said in a Real Life Catholic video that the broadside against Catholic leaders went too far:

“OK, ‘our bishops.’ I'd like to ask which ones. All of them?” asked Stefanick. However, it was important that Butker accurately focused on the struggle by many Catholics — especially those sick or dying — to receive the sacraments during the pandemic.

“To just move on without calling it out, without repentance from the church, isn't doing us any good,” said Stefanick. “We failed, big time, as a church. It shows in our numbers not coming back, and it wasn't just so much that the sacraments were not important. What many sensed was a message from church leaders suggesting, ‘You're not important to me.’”

Butker’s claim that Catholic leaders acted like “the sacraments don't actually matter” hit hard in the wake of a much-debated 2019 Pew Research Center survey that claimed only 31% of U.S. Catholics believe that during Mass, “the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”

However, a 2023 survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University reported that many modern Catholics are confused about how to describe this core doctrine. The new research found that 95% of weekly Mass attendees and 80% of those who attend at least once a month believe in the “real presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist. Still, the survey reported that only 17% of adult Catholics attend Mass at least once a week, as opposed to 24% before COVID.

Ongoing Catholic debates about sacramental theology offer clues as to why Butker's scathing remarks rang true for many believers — especially the young — who are seeking solid spiritual ground after the pandemic, said cultural critic Bethel McGrew in an online essay about “Harrison Butker and the state of Catholicism.”

The NFL star was addressing “a generation which desperately wants to believe that things like the Eucharist mean something and is not at all sure this is what their leaders believe,” she wrote.

Recently, she added, she saw a “touching” video clip of the Catholic president of Poland scrambling to retrieve a Eucharistic wafer as it blew in the wind.

“Once the Host is consecrated, Catholics are to protect it with exactly this sort of care, making sure it's not lost or wasted,” she said. “To a religious outsider, this might seem like a very strange gesture, but it makes sense if you believe the Eucharist means something.”

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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.