The Right Rev. Mariann Budde returned to the altar at Washington National Cathedral on Sunday, 12 days after she urged President Donald Trump to show mercy to immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community during an interfaith service recognizing Trump’s inauguration.
The Rev. Budde’s remarks on Jan. 21 thrust her into an international spotlight and sparked intense reaction.
While some praised her for restoring their faith in Christian leaders, others, including Trump, criticized her for bringing politics into worship.
“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,” wrote Trump on Truth Social about the Rev. Budde, who is the Episcopal bishop of Washington.
On Sunday, as in the days following the inauguration event, the Rev. Budde defended her actions, arguing that her goal was to highlight Christian teachings, not start a political fight.
“It isn’t political activism for a pastor to ask for mercy,” she told The Washington Post. “It is an expression of Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus.”
Reactions to the sermon to Trump
After the Rev. Budde delivered her viral sermon, more than 50,000 people signed a petition put together by Faithful America to thank her for “using her pulpit to speak truth to power.”
In the petition description, the organizers explained that it is meant to be a public show of support at a time when the bishop has “a target on (her) back.”
As the petition was coming together, a group of federal lawmakers were putting together a very different kind of response.
House Resolution 59, which was submitted on Jan. 23 and then referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, rebukes the Rev. Budde for her “political activism” and “distorted message.”
Since it hosted the inaugural prayer service last month, Washington National Cathedral has been fielding less formal versions of both of those types of responses, per The Washington Post. The cathedral has been “inundated with calls, emails and letters from around the globe,” the article said.
Trump battle with Episcopal bishop
In her interview on Sunday with The Washington Post, the Rev. Budde said she’s trying not to take the extreme response to her sermon personally.
The wide range of feedback “says more about where we are as a nation than it does about me personally,” she said.
The Rev. Budde has not apologized to Trump for her sermon, but she also hasn’t asked him for an apology over his Truth Social post.

In interviews given after her sermon went viral, she said that she tries not to predict how listeners will respond to her remarks, whether they’re offered during an inaugural prayer service or a regular Sunday morning gathering.
“I keep my expectations low whenever I preach,” she told CNN. “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.”
The Rev. Budde told The Washington Post that she felt a little afraid before she delivered her sermon to the president on Jan. 21, but added that she doesn’t see the message as shocking or surprising.
“Budde insists it was ‘a pretty basic sermon, the themes of which have been preached in many pulpits across the country on any given Sunday,’” The Washington Post reported.