‘Have Mercy’ Washington Bishop Mariann Budde’s plea to President Donal Trump

22 January 2025: For the record: Episcopal News Service: As Trump demands apology, Washington bishop explains her call for mercy toward those living in fear

The sermon’s duration was less than 15 minutes. Its theme – a call for unity grounded in faith at a time of political division – was hardly out of the norm for a post-inauguration service at Washington National Cathedral, which has hosted similar services 10 times before.

It was the sermon’s final four minutes that struck a chord. Washington Bishop Mariann Budde issued a final plea directly to President Donald Trump as he sat in the front row, a moment that would generate national headlines and intense reactions, both positive and negative.

Her calm plea to the president: “Have mercy.”

Later in the day Jan. 21, Trump made clear his distaste for the sermon when asked about it by reporters, saying he “didn’t think it was a good service.” Then early Jan. 22, he amplified his complaints with a social media post that demanded Budde and “her church” apologize.

Without using Budde’s name, the president labeled her “a so-called bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” whose sermon was “ungracious” and “nasty in tone.”

Budde, in her sermon, had asked Trump to show mercy to “the people in our country who are scared now,” and she specifically held up the fears felt by many LGTBQ+ people and immigrants at the start of Trump’s second term.

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, attend the Jan. 21 prayer service at Washington National Cathedral. Photo: Associated Press

A day earlier, after his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump had issued a series of executive orders, including several intended to address what he declared was a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border. During the campaign Trump had promised to enact mass deportations, and in his social media post about Budde’s sermon, he added, without evidence, that a “large number of illegal migrants” had entered the United States and killed people as part of a “giant crime wave.”

Budde’s plea to Trump: ‘Have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared’

Episcopal News Service sought comment from Budde for this story, which will be updated upon receiving a response. The bishop, whose diocese includes the United States’ capital city and part of Maryland, discussed her sermon in an interview with CNN that aired Jan. 21, after Trump’s initial comments but before his demand for an apology.

Budde confirmed she was looking directly at Trump while speaking to him from the pulpit.

“I was also, frankly, as you do in every sermon, speaking to everyone who was listening, through that one-on-one conversation with the president, reminding us all that the people that are frightened in our country … are our fellow human beings and that they have been portrayed all throughout the political campaign in the harshest of lights,” Budde told CNN. “I wanted to counter, as gently as I could, with a reminder of their humanity and their place in our wider community.”

She later told NPR’s “All Things Considered” that she didn’t see a need to apologize.

“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 said. “But, no, I won’t apologize for what I said.”

Read more: https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2025/01/22/as-trump-demands-apology-washington-bishop-explains-her-call-for-mercy-toward-those-living-in-fear/