An interfaith service at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday took a controversial turn when the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, spoke directly to President Donald Trump at the end of her sermon.
The Rev. Budde urged Trump to care for immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community, and to keep mercy at the front of his mind.
“As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said.
The Rev. Budde’s remarks evoked a strong reaction, including from the president.

More liberal people of faith took to social media to thank her for speaking up for vulnerable communities, while some conservative commentators criticized her for bringing politics into a sacred setting.
In a Truth Social post shared Wednesday morning, Trump criticized the Rev. Budde for being “nasty” and “not compelling or smart.”
“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,” he wrote.
Trump argued that the Rev. Budde should have reflected on acts of violence linked to migrant families.
He also said she and the Episcopal Church should apologize.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Inaugural prayer service
The Rev. Budde has served as the bishop of Washington since November 2011. She is the first woman to hold the role, according to the diocese’s website.
Tuesday was not the first time she publicly called out Trump’s leadership.
She grabbed national headlines in June 2020 when she criticized law enforcement for clearing Black Lives Matter protesters away from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., ahead of Trump’s famous photo shoot with a Bible.
“The symbolism of him holding a Bible … as a prop and standing in front of our church as a backdrop when everything that he has said is antithetical to the teachings of our traditions and what we stand for as a church — I was horrified," the Rev. Budde told Religion News Service at the time.

The Rev. Budde was one of many faith leaders who took part in Tuesday’s inaugural prayer service at Washington National Cathedral.
“The service — which Trump officials call a ‘National Prayer Service’ but which cathedral sources referred to as ‘A Service of Prayer for the Nation’ — featured prayers, invocations and Scripture readings from Episcopalian, African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Mennonite, Jewish, Indigenous, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh traditions, as well as members from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," Religion News Service reported.
As of Wednesday morning, the Rev. Budde, Washington National Cathedral and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington had not responded to Trump’s call for an apology.
During an appearance on CNN Tuesday night, the Rev. Budde said her message was not just for Trump but for all Americans.
“I wanted to present a vision of what unity can look like in this country ... acknowledging our common humanity,” she said.
The Rev. Budde also noted that she wasn’t expecting Trump to love her remarks, since she never goes into sermons with high expectations.
“I keep my expectations low whenever I preach,” she said. “I have to let all of that go. I speak from what I believe I’ve been given to say and let it go from there.”