At a sermon given at Washington National Cathedral, Rev. Mariann Budde challenged many of the executive orders issued by Trump on his first day in office as well as the ideas behind the orders. She asked him to “have mercy” on people who are “scared,” including immigrants and LGBTQ children.
Budde, a prelate of the Episcopal Church, and Bishop of Washington since 2011, used her sermon to direct a plea to Trump, taking advantage of a situation in which the president had to remain begrudgingly and uncharacteristically docile and silent.
Trump sat stone-faced but seemingly chastened in a front pew. Noting how he had told the nation during his swearing in – during which he conspicuously did not lay his hand on the Bible, as is tradition – that he had “felt the providential hand of a loving God,” by virtue of his surviving two assassination attempts, Budde invoked the compassion and mercy of God as she called on Trump “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,” she told the once far more liberal president.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
