'Desperate': Pastors, conservatives unleash on Episcopal bishop for 'weaponizing' the pulpit against Trump
The Washington, D.C., pastor who delivered a liberal sermon during a church service attended by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance is facing fierce backlash from fellow pastors, as well as critics on social media for "weaponizing" the pulpit instead of promoting unity.
"Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She's the first woman to hold the position. She was given a great honor today, a chance to unify America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you'd hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment," Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk posted to X.
Catholic Vote, a conservative nonprofit, added on X, "Liberal Protestant Pastor Mariann Edgar Budde blindsides Trump and Vance, weaponizing her sermon to attack them in front of their families by saying they should ‘have mercy’ on gay, lesbian, and transgender children. Unbelievable."
Trump and Vance, alongside their respective families, took part in a long 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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This year's service, however, took a turn when the bishop of the protestant church warned that gay and transgender children allegedly "fear for their lives" and that Trump should "have mercy," before turning her attention to illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
Trump and Vance appeared visibly annoyed by the comments, as Trump looked off to his side, while Vance shot a look over at Trump.
"In the name of our God, I ask you 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," Mariann Edgar Budde claimed in the church service.
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"And the people who pick our crops, clean our office buildings, labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat at restaurants and work the night shifts at hospitals, they may not be citizens, or have the proper 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 race bait America back into the pernicious grips of DEI."
"The fact that President Trump demanded that God remain as the foundation of America should have received non-partisan praise from all of our nation's clergy. We are addressing DEI and wokeness in our government and businesses and it’s 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 slammed the comment in a statement to Fox Digital.
"Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and the service to not only lecture the president but to promote a secular worldview and her woke ideology. Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to biblical truth, not cultural assimilation. Her sermon was indicative of the heresy being taught by mainline denominations. Our nation was founded upon 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 for the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants."
"This Bishop asked Trump and his administration to have mercy on trans kids and immigrants. What I would like to know is why she didn’t ask for the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants? Where was she when it counted? We have children who are 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. Where was she when Biden opened the borders and allowed millions of people who knew they were breaking the law to cross over," Brooks told Fox News Digital following the sermon.
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"We knew a day of reckoning was coming. Yet where was her request for compassion back then. What the previous administration did was not compassion but ideological malpractice. They operated on children out of ideology. They allowed in people from other countries out of ideology. This was not compassion. Our compassion must be for our citizens first and foremost," he added.
Other critics of the remarks slammed 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 comment provided to Fox News Digital that "when compassion divorces itself from truth, it becomes a counterfeit virtue—easily manipulated, shallow, and destructive."
"As Christ warned in John 8:44, the father of lies thrives where truth is discarded, twisting kind intentions into tools of hell. True compassion bows to the authority of law and justice-for his throne is established on Justice; without these, it is not compassion at all, but indulgence in sophistry that serves the enemy of God," Englehard said.
Additionally, country music artist John Rich responded to the sermon by citing scripture. "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Matthew 12:30"
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 Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!" he posted.
His message followed Budde joining CNN, where she explained that she was speaking directly to Trump in the sermon.
"I was speaking directly to him. I was also, frankly, as you do in every sermon, speaking to everyone who was listening through that one-on-one conversation with the president. Reminding us all that in the people that are frightened in our country, the two groups of people that I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and that they have been portrayed in, all throughout the political campaign, in the harshest of lights that … I wanted to counter as gently as I could with a reminder of their humanity and their and their place in our wider community," she said.