Bishop: 'I Don't Hate the President'

"I wanted to make a plea, a request that he broaden his characterization of the people that are frightened now and are at risk of losing everything, and I thought that that would be the more respectful way to say it," Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde said. So she used the pulpit during the inaugural prayer service Tuesday to ask President Trump to show mercy to people worried about what will happen to them during his term, including LGBTQ+ Americans and undocumented immigrants. Budde hoped to reach not just Trump, who later made clear he didn't appreciate the sermon, but anyone listening, the Guardian reports.

"I decided to ask him as gently as I could," Budde told NPR, "how dangerous it is to speak of people in these broad categories, and particularly immigrants, as all being criminals or transgender children somehow being dangerous." Despite the backlash from Trump and his allies, Budde said she had no regrets. "I don't hate the president, and I pray for him," the Episcopal bishop said after the president demanded she issue him an apology. "I don't feel there's a need to apologize for a request for mercy." Among the people rejecting her message was Republican Rep. Mike Collins, who posted on X that Budde "should be added to the deportation list."

Evangelical Christian supporters of Trump also criticized the sermon. The Rev. Franklin Graham said Washington National Cathedral has been "taken over by gay activists," per the Religious News Service. Other clergy voiced support, and the Episcopal Church said it backs Budde "and her appeal for the Christian values of mercy and compassion." Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who's Episcopalian, praised the bishop for asking Trump "to recognize the universal Christian principle, shared by many other faiths, that we are all God's children." The cathedral's office said that it's receiving messages of support and that Budde is in high demand now. "We've heard from people saying, 'I stopped going to church years ago, but what I heard yesterday has made me rethink that decision,'" a spokesman said. (More President Trump stories.)