The Washington, DC, pastor who delivered a liberal sermon at a church service attended by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance is facing strong backlash from fellow pastors and critics on social media for ‘weaponizing’ the pulpit instead of promoting unity promote.
“Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She is the first woman to hold this position. She was given a great honor today, an opportunity to unite America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. “she disgraced herself with a talk you heard on CNN or an episode of The View, what a shame,” Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, wrote to X.
Catholic Vote, a conservative nonprofit, added to have’ for gay, lesbian and transgender children. . Unbelievable.”
Trump and Vance, along with their respective families, took part in a long-standing presidential tradition of attending the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral the day after the inauguration. The National Cathedral, an Episcopal church, has hosted the prayer service the day after the presidential inauguration since 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in.
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President Donald Trump attends the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
However, this year’s service took a turn when the Protestant church’s bishop warned that gay and transgender children are “supposedly in fear for their lives” and that Trump should “have mercy” before turning her attention to illegal immigrants living in the US live.
Trump and Vance appeared visibly irritated by the comments, while Trump looked to the sideas Vance glanced at Trump.
“In the name of our God, I ask you to have compassion for the people in our country who are now afraid. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some of whom fear for their lives. ” Marianne Edgar Budde claimed in the church service.
President Donald Trump and Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“And the people who pick our crops, clean our office buildings, work on poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and who work night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens, or have the right rights. documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she continued.
Pastor and former NFL star Jack Brewer told Fox News Digital that the sermon is “just the beginning of Democrats’ desperate attempts to lure America back into the pernicious grip of DEI.”
Former Minnesota Vikings safety Jack Brewer speaks during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday, February 27, 2021. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“President Trump’s insistence that God remain the foundation of America should have received unbiased praise from all of our nation’s clergy. We are addressing DEI and wokeness in our government and corporations and it is time to address wokeness in churches as well. ” he said.
Pastor Rob Pacienza of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida and founder of the Institute for Faith and Culture denounced the comment in a statement to Fox Digital.
Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and service not only to lecture the president, but also to promote a secular worldview and its woke ideology. Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to Biblical truth, not through cultural assimilation. Her sermon was indicative of the heresy being taught by the major denominations. Our nation was founded on the truth that there is God, and He alone defines good and evil,” he said.
Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks added that he would “like to know… why she didn’t ask the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants.”
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde arrives as President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“This bishop asked Trump and his administration to have compassion for trans children and immigrants. What I would like to know is why she didn’t ask the previous administration to have mercy on these trans children and immigrants? Where was she when it counted? We have children so young that they do not know the ways of this world and yet we are doing irreversible damage to their bodies – damage that many have since regretted knowing they were breaking the law cross over,” Brooks said after the sermon to Fox News Digital.
Pastor Corey Brooks speaks with Fox News. (Fox News)
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‘We knew there would be a day of reckoning. But where was her request for compassion then? What the previous government did was not compassion, but ideological malpractice. They operated on children out of ideology. They allowed people from other countries out of ideology. This was not compassion. Our compassion must be first and foremost for our citizens,” he added.
Other critics of the comments condemned Budde on social media for what they described as an attack on Trump and his policies.
The pastor of Kings Church in New York City, David Englehard added in a commentary to Fox News Digital that “when compassion becomes divorced from truth, it becomes a false virtue – easily manipulated, superficial and destructive.”
“As Christ warned in John 8:44, the father of lies thrives where the truth is rejected, twisting kind intentions into instruments of hell. True compassion bows before the authority of law and righteousness – for its throne is established in righteousness; without these, it is not compassion at all, but the indulgence of fallacies that serves the enemy of God,” Englehard said.
Additionally, country artist John Rich responded to the sermon by quoting Scripture. “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, men, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Matthew 12:30”
John Rich performs at Flagstock in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Labor Day Monday, September 2, 2024. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)
Trump demanded an apology from the pastor in a Truth Social post early Wednesday morning, describing her tone as “nasty.”
“The so-called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a hard-line radical left Trump hater. She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious manner. She was nasty in tone and not forceful or forceful. Smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal immigrants entering our country and killing people. Many were deposited from prisons and mental institutions. the service was very dull and uninspired. She’s not very good at her job! he posted.
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His message came after Budde joined CNN, where she explained that she spoke directly to Trump in the sermon.
“I spoke to him directly. To be honest, I was too… as you do in every sermonspeaking to everyone who listened during that one-on-one conversation with the president. I remind all of us that among the people who are afraid in our country, the two groups of people I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and they have been portrayed in the harshest light throughout the political campaign, which… I wanted responding as kindly as possible with a reminder of their humanity and their place in our wider community,” she said.
