Perhaps the President did not approve of Marian Edgar Bade’s homily in the National Assembly. But the bishop responded to a higher moral calling.
Bishop Marian Edgar Budd arrives as U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Bishop Marian Edgar Budd, who drew the ire of Donald Trump and his conservative allies this week with a National Prayer Service homily who called on the newly inaugurated president to “have mercy on the people in our country who are now afraid,” speaks the reflective and compassionate language of faith. In arms with hope huge demands a biblical commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, she encourages Americans in the nation’s capital — especially those in power — to take a deeper look at the intersection of their stated beliefs and their actions.
Yet while her push in this regard is invariably nuanced and apologetic, the spiritual leader of the historic Episcopal Diocese of Washington is not shy about speaking necessary truths in difficult times.
Two years into Trump’s first presidential term, Bishop Budd joined other leaders of the National Assembly in Washington in criticizing the “escalating racial rhetoric of the President of the United States.” In a sharp statement, – warned the leaders“When such violent, dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a resounding challenge and give cover to white supremacists.”
In June 2020, as authorities cleared the way for a Black Lives Matter demonstration so that Trump — a vocal critic of the protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd Jr. by a Minneapolis police officer — could hold a Bible aloft outside the parish house of St. John’s Episcopal Church on the square Lafayette near the White House, Budd made a statement on behalf of the diocese, who said“We do not in any way support the president’s inflammatory response to a wounded, grieving nation. In loyalty to our Savior, who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we join those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd.”
The bishop explained: “He took symbols sacred to our tradition and stood in front of the house of prayer fully expecting a celebratory moment,” and said: “I could do nothing but oppose it.”
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The same honest impulse to say what needed to be said led the bishop to issue a poignant plea to the 47th president on Tuesday as Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance attended the traditional post-inauguration National Prayer Service at the cathedral. At the end of his nearly 15-minute homily, which was peppered with biblical references and self-described “prayers for unity,” Bishop Budde looked at the president and said:
“Let me make one last request. Millions of people trusted you, Mr. President. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the hand of a provident loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are now afraid. Democratic, Republican, and independent families have gay, lesbian, and transgender children, some of whom fear for their lives. And the people, the people who harvest our crops and clean our office buildings, who work in poultry factories and meatpacking plants, who wash dishes after meals in restaurants and work night shifts in hospitals, they—they may not be citizens or have the proper documents, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples.
“I am asking you, Mr. President, to have mercy on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and to help those fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and hospitality here. . Our God teaches us that we should be merciful to the sojourner, for we were all once sojourners on this earth. May God give us the strength and courage to respect the dignity of each person, to speak the truth to each other in love and to walk humbly with each other and with our God for the good of all people, the good of all people in this country and the world.”
Trump’s initial response was dismissive. “I didn’t think it was a good service” he saidclaiming that “they could do much better.”
But over time, Bishop Budde’s homily became popular. It was widely shared on social media by prominent religious leaders such as Reverend James Martin, SJa Jesuit priest who serves as editor-in-chief of a Catholic magazine America. “This is my Christianity,” said the journalist Charlotte Clymerwho often writes on religious topics. Author-performer Bill Madden called Bishop Budde’s address “a sermon for the ages.” on wednesday Joy Behar interviewed the bishop on ABC The view and said she showed “more fearlessness than anyone in Congress right now.”
Trump’s disdain quickly grew sharper.
In a Tuesday evening social media post – he claimed“The so-called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a left-wing radical, a Trump hater,” and said: “She brought her church into the world of politics in a very inappropriate way. She was unpleasant in tone, not persuasive and not intelligent.’ Repeating his criticism of immigrants, the president concluded: “Besides her ridiculous statements, the service was very boring and uninspiring. She is not very good at her job! She and her church must apologize to the public!”
Trump has sparred with religious leaders before. When Pope Francis criticized the president’s proposal in 2016 to build a wall along the southern border of the United States, the pontiff said: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they are, and not about building bridges, is not a Christian. .. ” — Trump convicted It called the Pope’s message “shameful” and accused the Mexican government of “using the Pope as a pawn.”
Just this week, Pope Francis spoke out against Trump’s plans for mass deportation of immigrants for a second term. saying that “it makes poor people who have nothing pay the bills,” and adding, “It won’t do! This is not how things can be solved. That’s not how things get resolved.”
The United States has a long history of pastors calling presidents. In several of his last great sermons, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the policy of the war in Vietnam of former President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who stood alongside Dr. King in support of civil rights. In 2006, when then-President George W. Bush attended the funeral of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, Rev. Joseph Loweryan iconic figure in the civil rights and anti-war movements, recalls: “She urged nations to study war no more. . . . She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions far away.”
With the president, whose administration had dragged the US into war three years earlier, saying Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction sitting just feet away from him in the sanctuary of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta, Lowery said, “We now know what’s there there were no weapons of mass destruction. But Coretta knew, and we know, that there is a weapon of misdirection here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty is abundant. Billions more for the war, but no more for the poor.”
Reverend Lowry heard criticism of his funeral speech, and responded thoughtfully. “I certainly didn’t want it to be a bad tone,” he said. “I intended to call attention to the fact that Mrs. King was speaking truth to power. And here was an opportunity to demonstrate how she told the truth to the authorities about this war and about all wars.”
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A similar reflection on her choice to call for mercy was expressed in his homily by Bishop Budde. Asked Wednesday if she felt her message was being “misinterpreted and politicized,” – she answered“How not to politicize, right? We are in a hyper-political climate.”
But then the bishop explained: “One of the things I’m warning about is the culture of contempt we live in, which immediately jumps to the worst interpretations of what people say and puts them into categories like the ones you just that described. . It is part of the air we breathe now. And I tried to tell the truth that I felt needed to be told, but to do it as respectfully and kindly as possible, and to bring other voices into the conversation, voices that hadn’t been heard in the public space for a while.”
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