After a bishop at the National Cathedral prayer service for the
inauguration on Tuesday implored Donald Trump to “have mercy upon” immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, many have spoken out about the remarks – including Trump himself.
In a lengthy social media post early on Wednesday, Trump called the
Right Rev Mariann Edgar Budde a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater”
adding that “she brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way” and criticized her tone as “nasty”.
Later on in the statement, Trump described the service as “boring” and “uninspiring” and said that Budde and her church “owe the public an apology!”
Budde, 65, who is the first woman to serve as the spiritual leader of
the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, used her inaugural prayer service
sermon at the Washington National Cathedral to appeal to Trump directly.
She urged him to show mercy to scared individuals, including “gay,
lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and
independent families” some, who she said “fear for their lives”.
Budde emphasized the contributions of immigrants, and stated that “the
vast majority of immigrants are not criminals, they pay taxes, and are
good neighbors, they are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples”, and added: “Our God teaches us that
we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in
this land.”
“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor
in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we
eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not
be citizens or have the proper documentation, 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,
gurdwara, and temples.”
Budde also urged Trump to show mercy for families fearing deportation
and to help those fleeing war and persecution.
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we
were all once strangers in this land,” she said. “May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak
the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and
our God, for the good of all people — the good of all people in this
nation and the world. Amen.”
In an interview with CNN after her sermon, Budde said that her remarks
were intended to remind Trump and listeners of the humanity of those
negatively portrayed in his political campaign.
Budde, who has led the diocese since 2011, said she wanted to “counter
as gently as I could with a reminder of their humanity and their place
in our wider community”.
“I was speaking to the president, because I felt that he has this moment
now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to
do,” she said.
“I wanted to say there is room for mercy, there’s room for a broader compassion. We don’t need to portray with a broad cloth in the harshest
of terms some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who are in
fact, our neighbors, our friends, our children, our friends, children,
and so forth.”
Some of Trump’s allies joined the president in criticizing Budde’s remarks.
The Georgia representative Mike Collins suggested on social media that
Budde “should be added to the deportation list”, while the Fox News host Sean Hannity called her a “so-called Bishop” who turned the service into
a “woke tirade” and described her prayer “disgraceful” and filled with “fearmongering and division”.
Robert Jeffress, a Trump supporter and pastor of Dallas’s First Baptist church, who was in attendance for the sermon, criticized Budde for
“insulting rather than encouraging our great president” and said that
there “was palpable disgust in the audience with her words”.
In other circles, Budde was described as courageous and brave and her
sermon was praised.
Bernice King, daughter of the civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr
and the CEO of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, said that
the sermon was “an appeal to his humanity and an appeal on behalf of humanity”.
Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, wrote on social media
that Budde spoke with “apostolic courage” to Trump and JD Vance.
“She named the truth their policies deny,” Ivereigh said. “Their expressions of fury and discomfort suggest she nailed it.”
The Rev Caitlin Frazier, the assistant rector at St Mark’s Episcopal
church on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, said in a statement that she
was “proud to hear Bishop Budde speak the truths that Jesus calls us to speak”.
“We are commanded to love our neighbor: our trans neighbor, our
immigrant neighbor, our neighbors in public office,” Frazier said. “Her plea for mercy met this moment in American history. I pray that it will
be received, although I fear it was not.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/22/trump-bishop-mariann-edgar-budde
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we
were all once strangers in this land,” she said. “May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak
the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and
our God, for the good of all people — the good of all people in this
nation and the world. Amen.”
Whatta woman.
--
“We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him. We shouldn’t have listened to him, and we can’t let that happen ever again”.
-- Nikki Haley
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