Washington National Cathedral Video Screengrab / YouTube
CV NEWS FEED // The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., delivered a stridently political sermon about “transgender children” and illegal immigrants in the presence of President Donald Trump during a traditional national prayer service held at the Washington National Cathedral Tuesday. Trump later characterized the sermon as “ungracious” and called on the bishop to apologize to the public.
On the first full day of Trump’s second term, Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde presided over the Service of Prayer for the Nation. Trump attended the service with his wife Melania, other family members, Vice President Vance, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-LA.
“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde preached to the president from her pulpit. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings,” she also said, “they may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents would be taken away,” Budde continued. “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”
The Episcopal Church to which the prelate belongs is a liberal mainline Protestant denomination that supports abortion, same-sex “marriage,” the subjection of children to experimental sexual surgeries, and the ordination of women.
Trump said in response to questions from reporters shortly after the service that the sermon had been “not too exciting,” suggesting Budde could “do better.”
Budde, meanwhile, went on TV to reiterate her sermon in an interview with CNN during which she again criticized Trump for his positions on the humanitarian crisis at the border and the LGBTQ movement.
Hours later, the president took to his social media platform Truth Social, calling on Budde to apologize.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” Trump wrote. “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”
“She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions,” the president continued. “It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was very a boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”
Budde’s history of staunch opposition to Trump’s first presidency and support for far-left political causes began to come under heightened scrutiny in the hours following her widely panned sermon.
FOX News noted that she “had been a vocal critic of Trump and the U.S. government following George Floyd’s death” in 2020.
The Daily Caller reported Tuesday that Budde “said during a phone call in 2020 that she was ‘outraged’ by the president’s speech about the importance of law and order at St. John’s Episcopal Church after it was set ablaze by Black Lives Matter protesters.”
Budde told an interviewer that same year: “We need to replace President Trump.”
