On the second day of his return to the US presidency Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance followed the tradition of attending a service at the National Cathedral in Washington.
Here Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde used her sermon to make a call to the new political leaders to consider the effect of their policies and decisions on the people they’re directed at including the LGBTIQA+ community, families of undocumented immigrants and society’s most vulnerable.
Some of praised Bishop Budde’s words as boldly speaking truth to power, but she also faces the wrath of President Trump, and an deluge of comments on social media including people wishing her to death, abusive comments about her perceived sexuality, and criticism of her religious belief.
Trump aficionados around the globe have taken aim at the Bishop including Australian politicians and media personalities.
In her sermon Bishop Budde appealed to President Trump to show mercy to LGBTIQA+ people and illegal immigrants, saying many now feared for their lives.
“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” she said. Her comments came after the newly inaugurated US President made a declaration that the US government would only recognise people as their birth gender of male or female.
Bishop Budde also made a plea for respectful debate around people who live in the USA but do not hold citizenship, or the proper visas.
“And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who work in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
After the service the President hit back at the religious leader posting to social media that he expected her to make an apology to the American people.
President Trump said Budde was a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” adding that “she brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way” and he criticised her tone as being “nasty”.
Australian senator Ralph Babet from the United Australia party posted a string of comments about Bishop Budde including declaring that she was “not a Christian”. In other posts he labeled her “a weirdo”, “anti-Christ”, then “a witch”, “a freak”, “a demon”, “a retard” and a “nasty sick woman”. In November Senator Babet was censured by his senate colleagues over his online language.
US Republican politician Mike Collins called for Budde to be deported from the country, even though she’s a US citizen born in New Jersey.
There was also praise for the Budde Bishop. Bernice King, the daughter of civil rights hero Dr Martin Luther King Jr said the sermon was “an appeal to his humanity and an appeal on behalf of humanity”.
Rabbi Zach Shapiro published an open letter in the Jewish Journal that was nothing but praise for Bishop Budde and her powerful words. While an online petition has attracted almost 40,000 signatories who support her message.
Bishop Budde has responded to the criticism from President Trump and said she has no intention of apologising, but continues to pray for the President. During an interview with MSNBC she appealed for respectful debate.
“You can certainly disagree with me. You can disagree with what I’ve said or did. But could we, as Americans and fellow children of God, speak to one another with respect? I would offer the same to you,” Bishop Budde said.
What is the Episcopalian Church?
The Washington National Cathedral is an Episcopalian Church and Budde has served as the Bishop of Washington since 2011, prior to this she served as the rector of St John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis for 18 years.
The church is the US branch of the Anglican faith and has a progressive view towards women and LGBTIQA+ people. In 2004 Gene Robinson was ordained as the first Bishop who had publicly shared that he was in a same-sex relationship.++
Hate crime victim Matthew Shepard’s remains are also interred at the crypt of the Washington National Cathedral in 2018, with the service being led by Bishops Budde and Robinson.
Sky News host Liz Storer says the church should focus on biblical passages that declare homosexuality is an abomination
On the Sky News program The Great Debate host Liz Storer said she knew little about the Episcopalian Church but cited that what Bishop Budde was calling for mercy about what something that “the scriptures very clearly call a lifestyle of abomination.”
“I don’t know where this woman is coming from, this our God that she’s referring to is certainly not the Christian God.” Storer said.
The outspoken host said Budde had passed by an opportunity to make Americans come together under a Christian message and the dawn of a new era under the Trump administration, saying she had committed “blasphemy from the pulpit.”
