Episcopal Bishop Confronts Trump

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Episcopal Bishop Confronts Trump

From the National Public Radio in the USA

Volume 40  Issue 1,2,&3 | Posted: April 25, 2025

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal (Anglican) Bishop of Washington, preached to a crowded cathedral with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in the front pews during the Service of Prayer for the Nation at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday.

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President, millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

This came just one day after Trump issued a slate of executive orders, including one which has a section dedicated to “recognizing that women are biologically distinct from men,” and that there are only two genders in America, male and female; and other executive orders that declared a national emergency at the country’s southern border and issued several others related to immigration, including one attempting to do away with birthright citizenship, and another allowing millions of “illegal” refugees, many of whom have been in the USA for several generations, whose children grew up in the USA, to be forcibly deported. Bishop Budde challenged these orders and much of the rhetoric that has surrounded them.

She continued: “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.”

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

After the service on Tuesday, Republican U.S. Representative Mike Collins from Georgia posted a video clip on X of Budde’s sermon along with the text, “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”
Asked about the service on Tuesday, Trump told White House reporters that he, “didn’t think it was a good service.”

   

From the National Public Radio in the USA