Carol M. Highsmith Colleciton, LoC
An Episcopal Church bishop appeared to directly address President Donald Trump, who was in attendance at a service held at Washington National Cathedral this Tuesday.Just yesterday, at an inaugural prayer service sermon, an Episcopal bishop addressed President Donald Trump directly and urged him to “have mercy upon” illegal immigrants and LGBTQ+ children.
The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said the following during the concluding moments of her sermon.
“Millions have put their trust in you. And 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.”
“There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.”
“The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”
So what does one make of this?
The bishop had no right to abuse her position in the church and hijack a prayer service with a political message. By mentioning only working-class illegal migrants, is attempting to imply that this is about class and that Trump is persecuting the less fortunate. It also reveals her outlook when she assumes that illegal aliens can only be dishwashers and such. But illegal aliens could be wealthy and holding white-collar jobs. They could be the kind who overstay their visas.
What the bishop seems to forget is that it’s the President’s job to enforce the laws. Illegal aliens, irrespective of their profession, have broken the law. The law requires that violates be punished, the punishment here is deportation.
The bishop must also remember that a country has finite resources which are funded by and meant for taxpayers only. The resources could be anything from a hospital bed in an emergency ward or a public park. When illegal aliens overwhelm these resources, it is the citizen’s loss.
<img alt captext="Carol M. Highsmith Colleciton, LoC” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/a-bishop-insults-trump.jpg” width=”450″>Illegal aliens also end up taking jobs meant for citizens. When an illegal alien occupies the working-class jobs the bishop mentioned, citizens are rendered unemployed. When working-class citizens are unemployed for prolonged periods, the family suffers hardships.
While the Bishop didn’t explicitly state it, it can be inferred from her utterances that she is an open-border advocate.
Perhaps she doesn’t realize the perils an open border causes for citizens.
An open border facilitates the smuggling of deadly drugs that cause unspeakable harm and even result in overdose deaths. The victims are usually the young. Human trafficking is also the result of an open and unmonitored border. Also, if illegal aliens are allowed to cross over, there will be dangerous and violent criminals among them who can wreak havoc in the homeland.
However, the bishop appears to have no mercy for the citizens. It’s President Trump who is actually being compassionate to the needs of citizens.
It is also curious that the bishop mentioned transgender children. A child who changes his mind every moment simply doesn’t have the mental faculty and the life experience to decide on any kind of gender reassignment procedure. It is nothing short of barbaric when adults brainwash very young minds with this gender propaganda and coerce them into opting for gender reassignment procedures. Studies have shown that transgender people have a high suicide rate.
Even the most cold-hearted of individuals have instincts to protect children. Only forces of pure evil such as Nazis perform such barbaric acts on children.
One would expect that religious institutions which are supposed to be moral, would confront and condemn such evil acts and even side with those attempting to stop this barbarity. Instead, the bishop mentions transgender children as normal and a natural occurrence while in reality, it is the result of coercion and manipulation of impressionable minds. Churches are supposed to be pro-life, such procedures are also the equivalent of sterilization of innocent children.
The Bible calls children a gift of god, yet the Bishop seems to be siding with those doing unspeakable and permanent harm to these gifts from the almighty.
Yet the bishop seems to have no compassion for the child or the families of the child who have been subjected to this barbarity. President Trump is being humane by preventing children from being subjected to such treatment.
Some on social media have thought that Trump should have walked out, but that would have been unwise. A walkout would place undue importance on the virtue-signaling bishop who was among many preachers at the church. The bishop was seeking publicity by injecting a political message into her sermon. A walkout would have given her more publicity and made it appear that she had got the better of Trump.
Trump, Vance, and their families must be commended for showing exemplary restraint given the situation.
What is concerning is that the White House allowed President Trump to be subjected to this. One would imagine that the staff would have vetted all the preachers at the prayer service and had a fair idea about what would be said.
The Rev. Budde has been unfairly critical of Trump in the past. Back in 2020 when the president was photographed outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church with his bible, a day after George Floyd-supporting arsonists set fire to part of the church, Rev. Budde claimed to be outraged and even appeared to accuse him of blasphemy.
The rest of Rev. Budde’s statement made her sound like an MSNBC contributor. She mentioned 400 years of systemic racism and white supremacy. She aligned the church ‘with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd.’ Although there was an explicit mention of supporting peaceful protests, her lack of condemnation of the burning of the church or the rioting, looting, and violence made it clear where she stood.
It is undeniable what Rev. Budde stands for. Trump’s White House should have insisted that Budde not deliver the sermon, or perhaps they shouldn’t have attended the specific prayer service.
This is a needless embarrassment for Trump and Vance and their families on the second day of his presidency. Hopefully, the White House personnel who allowed this to happen will be rebuked for their carelessness.
Back to the sermon.
At a juncture where the Bishop should have spread unity and harmony, she was attempting to sow seeds of division. This a reminder of how far religious institutions have been co-opted by sinister forces causing them to depart from their core values. This is a matter that needs attention from the Trump administration.
Image: Library of Congress/Carol M. Highsmith
