the Washington, D.C., Rev A pastor who preached a liberal sermon during a church service attended by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance is facing backlash from fellow pastors, as well as critics on social media for “weaponizing” the pulpit rather than promoting unity.
“Bishop Marian Edgar Budd is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She is the first woman to hold that position. She has had a great honor today, an opportunity to unite America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. Instead, she has humiliated herself with a lecture she heard on CNN Or an episode of The View What an embarrassment,” Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, posted on X.
Catholic Vote, a conservative nonprofit, added on incredible.”
Trump and Vance, along with their families, participated in a long presidential tradition of attending the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral the day after the inauguration. The National Cathedral, an Episcopal church, has hosted a prayer service on the day following a presidential inauguration since 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt was sworn into office.
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President Donald Trump attends the National Prayer Mass at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
However, this year's Mass took a turn when the bishop of the Protestant Church warned that gay and transgender children “fear for their lives” and that Trump should “have mercy” on them, before turning her attention to illegal immigrants living in the US.
Trump and Vance appeared visibly upset by the comments. While Trump looked to his sidewhile Vance glanced at Trump.
“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are afraid right now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, and some of them fear for their lives,” Marianne Edgar Budd Claimed in a church service.
President Donald Trump and Bishop Marian Edgar Budde. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Pastor asks Trump to have mercy on immigrants and gay children who 'fear for their lives'
“The people who pick our crops, clean our office buildings, work in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash dishes after eating in restaurants and work night shifts in hospitals may not be citizens, or have the right to be.” She continued: “documents, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
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 insidious grip of DEI.”
Jack Brewer, former safety for the Minnesota Vikings, speaks during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday, February 27, 2021. (Ilya Novellaj/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The fact that President Trump demanded that God remain as the foundation of America should have received nonpartisan praise from all of our nation’s clergy. We are addressing DEI and mindfulness in our government and businesses and it is time to address mindfulness in churches as well,” he said.
Pastor Rob Pacienza of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida and founder of the Faith and Culture Institute criticized the comment in a statement to Fox Digital.
“Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and ministry not only to lecture the president but also to promote the secular worldview and its woke ideology. Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to biblical truth, not cultural assimilation. Her sermon was referring to the heresy taught by the mainline denominations,” he added. Our nation was founded on the truth that there is a God, and He alone determines good and evil.”
Chicago pastor Corey Brooks added that he “would like to know…why you did not ask the previous administration to have mercy on these transgender children and immigrants.”
Bishop Marian Edgar Budde arrives as President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevila/Getty Images)
“This bishop asked Trump and his administration for mercy for trans children and immigrants. What I would like to know is why did you not ask the previous administration for mercy for these trans children and immigrants? Where was she when that counted? We have children who are too young to know the ways of this world, and with “We are doing irreparable damage to their bodies, damage that many have since come to regret when Biden opened the border and allowed millions of people who knew they were breaking the law to cross.” Brooks told Fox News Digital after the sermon.
Pastor Corey Brooks speaks to Fox News. (Fox News)
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“We knew the day of reckoning was coming. But where was her request for compassion at that time? What the previous administration did was not compassion but ideological malpractice. They operated on children out of ideology. They allowed people from other countries out of ideology.” He added: “This was not out of sympathy, but rather it should be for our citizens first and foremost.”
Other critics of the comments criticized Bud on social media for what they described as an attack on Trump and his policies.
pastor Kings Church in New York City, David Engelhardt added in a commentary to Fox News Digital that “when compassion is divorced from truth, it becomes a false virtue — easily manipulated, shallow, and destructive.”
“As Christ warned in John 8:44, the Father of Lies thrives where the truth is ignored, turning good intentions into tools of hell. True mercy bows before the authority of law and justice—for His throne was founded on justice; without them, it is not Pity at all, but indulging in sophistry is what serves the enemy of God.”
Additionally, country music artist John Rich responded to the sermon by citing the Bible. “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you: All 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. (Live image by Fox News Digital)
Trump demanded an apology from the pastor in a post on Truth Social early Wednesday morning, calling his tone “nasty.”
“The alleged bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Trump-hating radical leftist. She brought her church into politics in a very inappropriate way. She had a bad tone, and was not persuasive or persuasive. She failed to mention the large number of illegal immigrants Who came to our country and killed people. Many of them were put in prisons and mental institutions. It's a huge crime wave that's happening in the United States of America. It's very boring and uninspiring. It's not very good at its job Her church owes the public an apology!
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His message came after Buddy joined CNN, where she explained that she was speaking directly to Trump in the sermon.
“I was talking to him directly. I was also, frankly, As you do in every sermonspeaking to everyone who was listening during that one-on-one conversation with the president. To remind us all that among the people who feel fear in our country, the two groups of people I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and they have been portrayed, throughout the political campaign, in the harshest lights… “I wanted to confront them as gently as I could with the reminder of their humanity,” she said. “And their place in our broader society.”
