I have a magnet proudly displayed on my fridge that’s a sketch of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, with the caption: “Give me that old time… separation of Church and State.” So my hackles are constantly being raised at the ever-increasing sway organized religion lords over our politics. It’s such a profound, deliberately mistaken understanding of our constitution. That being said, there was a genuine exception this week, when Episcopal bishop Mariann Budde led a prayer service at Washington Cathedral on Tuesday. In the most gracious way possible, Bishop Budde addressed the new president seated in the first row, asking him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” The president’s social media-issued response hours later was predictably full of vitriol, but it hasn’t cowed Bishop Budde. Instead, she has spoken to several news outlets, including All Things Considered on NPR, reaffirming that she believes in what she said, she believes she spoke appropriately, and no, she will not be apologizing. Amen, sister! I mean bishop!
Blessed are the merciful: “I decided to ask him as gently as I could to have mercy,” Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, said of her plea to Trump, telling All Things Considered, “how dangerous it is to speak of people in these broad categories, and particularly immigrants, as all being criminals or transgender children somehow being dangerous. … To be united as a country with so many riches of diversity, we need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy. And rather than list that as a broad category, as you heard me say, I decided to make an appeal to the president.”
Blessed are the peacemakers: Despite the backlash, Budde told NPR that her remarks were sincere, and she did not have any regrets in bringing them to the president’s attention. “I don’t hate the president, and I pray for him,” Budde said. “I don’t feel there’s a need to apologize for a request for mercy. … I regret that it was something that has caused the kind of response that it has, in the sense that it actually confirmed the very thing that I was speaking of earlier, which is our tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect,” she continued. “But no, I won’t, I won’t apologize for what I said.”
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness: “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some of who fear for their lives,” Budde said. “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, they — 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.”
Blessed are you when people insult you: Trump criticized Budde’s remarks, writing after midnight Wednesday morning on his Truth Social platform: “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. … She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”
I’m not a religious person myself, but “so-called Bishop” was a low blow from the so-called president. Although, I’d bet $5 that Trump didn’t even know there were women bishops until that service. Most of Bishop Budde’s comments are excerpted here, but I beseech you to watch the scene in motion. For one thing, you immediately get a feel for what a gentle spirit the bishop is. Her voice is sure but not bombastic, her manner ever so delicate because she knows the gravity of the moment. You get the sense that she’s the last person in the world who wants to stir up even the slightest whiff of trouble, but her conviction compels her to. Then of course there’s the other half of this equation, the fascinating reaction shots of the Trumps and Vances. Here’s my take: Donald, Melania, and Eric have no discernable responses, to the extent that to me they looked like they were listening to someone speaking to them in another language. JD kept turning to his wife with a snicker on his face, and to her credit, Usha kept her gaze on the bishop and was the only one maintaining a passingly sincere gaze. Lara looked pissed, and Tiffany was serving fish face.
photos via Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Instagram/YouTube
🔥🔥🔥 is too good for that cornucopia of trash 😕
The Bishop wrote a book on bravery. https://bsky.app/profile/mocollins.bsky.social/post/3lgf4v7i7tc2n
I’m a nonbeliever raised by two nonbelievers but I’d like to believe that Bishop Budde wholly embodies Jesus’s teachings. Like, I wish that her mindset was shared by the majority of folks who attend church but……
Anyway, she was phenomenally brave to speak out on behalf of marginalized people. She spoke from the heart and with a clarity that is so lacking in our current society. It was so incredibly moving and like a salve to my broken heart.
That being said, talking heads on the left are back to insisting that this messaging rooted in optimism, hope, and unity is what Dems should be putting forth and yeah no. It works for a clergy member–her message feels genuine and in keeping with her teachings. But I don’t want unity, hope, optimism or any saccharine, performative bullshit coming from leaders on the left. We keep trying that shit and it’s not fucking working. Bishop Budde was not afraid to speak truth to power–I want our leaders to do the same–except I want them to FIGHT. I want them to be angry and to do everything they can to save us. Fuck norms. We need to start treating Trump and his Project 2025 agenda like the threat that it is and pull out every tool we have to battle it. The time for unity, going high, clinging to institutional norms has ended and we need to meet this moment accordingly.
+1
I was just thinking yesterday how Trump’s assault on immigrants is absolutely antithetical to everything Jesus said and stood for. And yet so many so-called Christians are cheering him on. The hypocrisy boggles the mind.
Democrats have been fighting to save US 🇺🇲 all 57 years of my life….The Dems…ESPECIALLY the ones from the last 8 years HAVE BEEN HEAVY HITTERS…I will NEVA forget what Senator Kamala Harris did in the Senate hearings during POS Trump’s FIRST reign of terror…dragging ALL OF THEM FOR ABSOLUTE FILTH! and MANY Dems followed suit…
It dosen’t matter what Pelosi 🤬 did or any other Dem leader during the last election…the BOTTOM line is that the country ALWAYS does better under Dems…But when you have MSM whitewashing fascists and folks leaning into misogyny and rascism…instead of voting as if their LIVES depended on it…there is NO AMOUNT OF DEM TALKING POINTS THAT WILL
CHANGE THAT!
Voters got to save themselves from now on and y’all need to stop BLAMING Dems for messaging when you all have seen for DECADES that messaging don’t matter…
I couldn’t agree more!!!
Ditto lol .. I am atheist but was raised Catholic and her words were much more “christ-like” than any other teachings I’ve heard.
I need the LIKE button for @Kitten comment!!
Do the MAGAt “Christians” understand that if Jesus were here preaching today, they’d be the ones calling for him to be put to death?
Exactly. Jesus was also an ‘anchor baby’, of migrants who could not find shelter.
Yes. And his family was poor. Something these “Christians” consider a sin today. And he was considered a radical, hence why they put him to death. And why they put his early followers who came after him to death.
No Jesus was not an anchor baby, I don’t know why people keep repeating that “soundbite”. Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, not because they were “looking for a better life”, but because the census required Joseph to register in his ancestral homeland. Joseph went there (to his homeland) to follow the directive that he had been given and took his wife with him….so no, Jesus was not an anchor baby, but was born in the homeland of his ‘father’ . The family later moved to Egypt which would make them ‘migrants’ at a later time.
Looking at Trump’s actions, and the cult around him, the term ‘Antichrist’ comes to mind.
He is anti the teachings of Christ as shown by his latest temper tantrum against this pastor’s message. White conservatives losing their damn minds over a Black man being the President had them throwing around the term Anti-Christ (and they started to do it with Harris too) like they throw around the word Marxist whenever they disagree with liberals. Trump is literally anti Christ.
Nothing angers a MAGA “Christian” more than hearing the words and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Good for her because she has nothing to apologize for!!!!!!
Lifelong Lutheran who has worshipped Episcopalian and hasn’t belonged to a church in a while. Her intercession has prompted me to research Episcopal churches in my community. As a person of faith, I will NOT allow the far right to co-opt and pervert the teachings of Jesus. And I need to strengthen my resolve by being in a faith community again. I hope she’s inspired other people in a similar way.
There has been a bit of an informal split in the US episcopal church between those who are pro and anti gay clergy— so pick carefully!
Vance’s reaction told me everything I needed to know. Trump is dangerous. Vance is more so. All that damaged little boy anger and contempt ready to be unleashed on the world.
More faith leaders need to speak up. She is a hero.
Agreed. That is the least they should be doing.
Religion aside, no one should be asked to apologize for exercising their freedom of speech.
This.
In addition to freedom of speech there’s also the sanctity of the pulpit — something especially those people who consider themselves Christians should have heard of.
Like many others here, I’m an atheist, but Bishop Budde’s sermon was exactly what *those people* who make up Felon47’s family and entourage needed to hear. Same goes for the politics, press and society in general, no matter if religious or not.
I just dropped a note in the mail to her, thanking her, and you can too:
ADDRESS:
The Rt Revd Mariann Edgar Budde
Episcopal Church House
Mount St. Alban
Washington, DC, 20016
Thank you for this! I will also be sending her a note today thanking her.
thank you for this!! She deserves all of the praise that she is being given and has absolutely nothing to apologize for.
She is also the person responsible for ensuring that Matthew Shepherd has a safe final resting place. She found out that his parents couldn’t bury him because of fears of vandalism of his gravesite. So she offered them space at the National Cathedral to inter his ashes.
She has a long history of grace.
❤️❤️ that is beautiful. I had no idea.
She shouldn’t apologize.
And by the way, “She brought her church into the World of politics,” said the man who has cynically exploited the holy rollers and their colonial, pre-Civil War agenda to stay in power.
Fuck Trump.
The man had a photocall of himself holding a Bible (upside down) in front of a church for crying out loud. So if anyone brought politics into it–he started it.
A photocall he had people gassed and beaten so the area was clear so he could get the shot. Remember he walked out there with a general and crew after hiding in the White House basement. It might have been her church, I remember it was episcopal and the church members sheltered people who were being cleared, and had been there giving water to protestors.
And it was a church in Bishop Budde’s diocese. She was so incensed by Trump’s performance outside of St. John’s Church in Lafayette Square that she wrote a New York Times op-ed about it.
Gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/trump-st-johns-church-protests.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk4.oAKj.Ez-9HD2PF-tt&smid=url-share
says the man who is SELLING BIBLES and bitcoin.
I love this woman. Sh3 stood with dignity and grace and spoke for most of America. She is one brave lady . I just loved the facial expressions on the Trump clan . No Donald god is not with you.
Donald, who the religious right have claimed, couldn’t be bothered to swear on a Bible to execute his duties as POTUS. Donald, who has always cheated on his wives. That guy? I can see how any sort of actual religion is foreign to him if he can’t profit off it (the Trump Bibles etc). Good for the bishop.
I realized halfway through the bishop’s sermon that Tiffany is the only Trump child whose mom is not an immigrant.
100%. First wife Ivana Trump became a citizen in 1988, making Don Jr, Ivanka, and Eric anchor babies that Trump would deny citizenship. “Rules for thee but not for me.”
I have such admiration for this woman. It takes a real act of courage in this climate to speak the true purpose of religion to a bunch of phonies who are using it to dupe the faithful into advancing their own self-serving agenda. She is one of the few who has had the bravery not to cave to these dangerous bullies (like so many others have done and continue to do).
She is a hero. And she’s right. I’ve spent much of my adult life de-programming from my evangelical christian upbringing. I started down that journey because, unlike many christians today, I actually read the Bible. The message of Jesus is overwhelmingly one of love and forgiveness and compassion for others, and in a church where people always preached to “be like Jesus,” folks were the opposite. Judgmental. Hateful. Absolutely hypocritical. And that continues today, getting even worse with the FALSE orange idol, and they don’t care about truth. That includes the messages in the book they supposedly live their lives by.
She’s my pastor and I’m so proud of her. It’s a sad world when what she said is considered political. She has nothing to apologize for. Long live Rev Budde and the Washington National Cathedral!
* Bishop
She was so quietly powerful in her sermon and has continued to be in the face of backlash.
Another reason to love her – when Budde learned from Matthew Shepard’s parents that they were concerned about laying him to rest due to concerns his grave would be vandalized, she invited his parents to inter him inside the WNC, and she presided over the service.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/01/24/bishop-mariann-edgar-budde-matthew-shepard/
I don’t know if any of you have read any of the executive orders, but they are ugly and sound like they were written by an angry child. Those of us who didn’t vote for that need to hear a spiritual leader who isn’t trying to straddle the line (or in some cases tow the line) with the Republican Party.
I am glad she said what she did and any calls for an apology are sad. Half of voters say they want a Christian nation. If that were true, then why do they reject the basic teachings of Christianity? Why would her sermon stir up outrage?
They are going to get this woman killed by some crazed maga follower.
He is a thin skinned and easily offended man baby. He knows that she is speaking the truth and he can’t stand it.
Also, he called her nasty. That’s a term that he only uses when talking about women.
He doesn’t care. He took away Dr. Fauci’s security today and said he wouldn’t take any responsibility if something happened to him.
I fear for her bc Orange wants her deported (will that be his response to all who disagree with him?) and language intended to rile up the rethuglicans (“she hates Trump”). It’s like he’s putting a target on her back. And talking about himself in the 3rd person? He is a demented and dangerous man.
Eliminating those who oppose you is right out of the fascist handbook. But we all knew that and were screaming it out loud, at the top of our lungs, trying to get the people who were voting third party or not at all to realize the ramifications of that decision.
And, so, here we are.
I ordered a copy of Bishop Budde’s book from a women-owned indie bookstore. For me resistance looks like paper books, a lot more reading, and no more money to Jeff Bezos.
And cut Zuckerberg out of your life as well. Just disgusting that these billionaires are running this country now. And the idiots that believe these guys are self made and don’t owe anyone anything.
I thought she said it in a kind voice and tone=I know plenty of people in her position would use some very choice words and language if they ever got the chance.For the readers of this blog we need to get serious about what is going on in this country-I just read where the Trump government is trying to say the Indians in this country might not be legal residents-I stopped in my tracks because I could not believe it-Trump said he hates a lot of diffirent groups of people-Life is going to be very hard for a lot of non-white people-If wealthy people of a sane mind have an extra home away from this country-they need to seriously consider getting one-they will need a place to decompress from all the hatred and meaness going on-this week has my head spinning from all the changes in my government and throughout the entire country-my husband and I are not rich but have decent incomes to live elsewhere if need be-we have been talking about living in the carribean-God bless everyone and please take care of yourselves and your love ones.
The teachings of Jesus are far too ‘woke’ for the MAGA cult. Jesus isn’t reported as saying anything about abortion or being gay. He said a lot about social and economic justice, but they ignore those teachings. Well done Bishop.
Honestly, Trump doesn’t look like he’s understanding what’s being said. It’s the senility that’s getting to him. And the fact that he reacted on social media like a coward afterward instead of trying to discuss the subject just leads me to believe that people around him told him that Bishop Budde had said something mean and his giant baby feelings got hurt.
The facial expressions and body language of Orangini and his criminal enterprise family are the ultimate tell. Why would anyone have such a visceral reaction during a church sermon preaching mercy, and peace, looks like she touched a nerve with all of these broken, compromised, corrupt, individuals to all have reacted on cue in unison, evil much? Yes, cruelty is always the point, the veil fell in this candid moment and they showed the world their ugly truth. Orangini, his family, his administration, and Maga show time and time again they have no humanity. We are in unchartered waters when a Bishop preaching mercy, grace, and humanity is labeled as a “radical leftist”.
I re-watched the video many times without sound, each time only focusing on one individual. Wow.
[*Usha Vance has a soul. What in the world is she doing with him.*]