Bishop Mariann Budde delivers her Jan. 21 sermon. Screenshot captured from @glamourmag on Instagram.
INÉS VENTURA
During the Jan. 21 inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, Right Rev. Mariann Budde delivered her sermon from the Canterbury Pulpit, calling for mercy from President Donald Trump, who was sat seven feet below her in the front pew alongside First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance.
“As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God,” Budde said. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
Budde went on to specify groups of people who are affected by the executive orders Trump signed the day before the service, including the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants who work in the U.S. “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals,” she said. “They may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
Budde concluded, “Our God teaches us to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. 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.”
Later that night on social media platform Truth Social, Trump criticized Budde, saying she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” He demanded that Budde issue an apology to the National Cathedral andthe public. Budde responded saying that she would continue to pray for President Trump, and that she does not “consider him an enemy,” according to the Associated Press.
University Chaplain Fr. Donal Godfrey, gave his own sermon on Jan. 26 where he preached that Bishop Budde was, “channeling Jesus in her words; speaking truth to power in love, in a strong and gentle way.”
USF’s Rabbi in residence Camille Shira Angel said, “I think the controversy and publicity that’s come from [Budde’s] public stunt is a good thing. She had to have assumed strategically that he wasn’t going to rise up and say, ‘Amen, bless you. Hallelujah, praise be thy word.’ She knew better than that, so she used her position and power, and authority to capture a nation and beyond to say what needed to be said. I think that’s like, heroic.”
Earlier in the Bishop’s sermon, before she addressed the president, Budde said, “It is incumbent on us to speak the truth. Even when, especially when, it costs us.”
In response to Trump’s reaction to the sermon, Angel said, “I found it very unpresidential that [Trump] would choose to chastise her. But then again it’s totally in keeping with his misogynist, felonist behavior.”
Godfrey said that Budde spoke “in words that gave me hope, that gave
me peace and gave me joy. And have encouraged many Christians, in many
different churches, to step up and realize that we’re in a critical moment […]
We need to step up and stand up for love over hate.”
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