politics
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January 23, 2025
The president may not approve of Marian Edgar Badet being honored at the National Cathedral. But the bishop answered a higher moral calling.
Bishop Marian Edgar Badet arrives as President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer service held at the Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Bishop Marian-Edgar Badet stirred the ire of Donald Trump and his conservative allies this week with a national prayer service. Homily It urged the newly sworn-in president to “have mercy on the people of our country who are now scared.” With a hopeful embrace huge requirements for bible commandments She encourages Americans in the nation’s capital, especially those in power, to love your neighbor as yourself.
But while her stabs in this regard are always rich in nuance and an urge for forgiveness, the spiritual leader of Washington’s historic Episcopal diocese is reluctant to speak the truth necessary in difficult times. plug.
Two years into Trump’s first presidential term, the bishop joined other leaders at the Washington National Cathedral in criticizing the “escalation of racialized rhetoric from the president of the United States.” With a harsh statement, the leader warned“When such violent, dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call and hide from white supremacists.”
In June 2020, Trump, a sharp critic of the protests that erupted following the killing of George Floyd Jr. by a Minneapolis police officer, removed a large bible from outside a parish as authorities passed through a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Now you can keep it. Badet issued a statement on behalf of the diocese at St. John’s Episcopal Church home on Lafayette Square near the White House. it said“We will never support the president’s incendiary response to a nation grieving the injured. In faithfulness to a Savior who lived a life of nonviolence and sacrificial love, we stand behind George Floyd’s Align yourself with those seeking justice for the dead.”
“He took a sacred symbol in our tradition and stood in front of the House of Prayer in full anticipation of what would become a celebratory moment,” the bishop explained, adding, “I had no choice but to oppose it.” he said.
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It’s a similarly honest impulse that led the bishop to become the 47th president of the United States on Tuesday, when the president and Vice President J.D. Vance attended the traditional post-inauguration national prayer service at the cathedral. At the end of a nearly 15-minute homilies steeped in Biblical references and self-proclaimed “prayer for unity,” Bishop Badé turned to the president and said:
“Let me make a final plea. Mr. President, millions of people have placed 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 on the people of our country who are now scared.Democrats, Republicans, independent families, gays, lesbians, transgenders. We have children. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, the people who work on chicken farms and meat-packing plants, the people who wash our dishes after we eat at restaurants, the people who work night shifts at hospitals, they may not be citizens. The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals or have the proper documentation. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are loyal to our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, and temples. I am a member.
“I ask you to have mercy on those in our community whose children fear their parents will be taken away. Our God teaches us to be merciful to strangers, because we were all strangers in this land. honoring the people of the world, speaking the truth to one another in love, walking humbly toward one another, walking humbly for the good of our God, the good of all our people, the good of all the people of this nation. May you give us strength and courage and the world.”
Trump’s initial response was dismissed. “I didn’t think the service was good.” he saidgrasping that “they can do better.”
However, over time, Bishop Badet’s homilies went viral. It was widely circulated on social media by prominent faith leaders such as Reverend James Martin, SJa Jesuit priest who serves as editor for the Catholic Journal America. “This is my Christianity,” the journalist declared charlotte climberoften writes about religious issues. singer songwriter bill madden Bishop Budde’s speech was praised as a “sermon for the ages”. on wednesday, joy bear I interviewed the Bishop of ABC. view And he said she “showed more fearlessness than anyone in this Congress.”
Trump’s disdain quickly took on a sharper edge.
Social media post on Tuesday night he claimed“The so-called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer service on Tuesday morning was a hard line on Trump Harter’s radical left,” he said, adding, “She has politicized her church in a very wasteful way.” “She was nasty in tone, not persuasive, not smart.” After revising his criticism of immigration, the president concluded: She’s not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology! ”
Trump has sparred with religious leaders before. When Pope Francis criticized the president’s 2016 proposal to build a wall along the U.S.’s southern border, he said, “Those who think of building walls, wherever they are, do not build bridges, but Christians. Not…” – Trump condemnation He called the Pope’s message a “disgrace” and accused the Mexican government of “using the Pope as a pawn.”
Just this week, Pope Francis opposed Trump’s second-term plan for large-scale deportations of immigrants. saying “That’s to some poor wretch who has nothing to pay his bills,” adding, “This doesn’t do it! This is not how things are resolved. That’s not how things are resolved.”
In the United States, there is a long history of pastors calling the president. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in some of his last great sermons opposed Vietnam war policy of former President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who stood with Dr. King in support of civil rights. In 2006, when then-President George W. Bush attended the funeral of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, Pastor Joseph Loweryan iconic figure in the civil rights and anti-war movements, said, “She summoned the nation to study war no more. … She lamented the horrors inflicted by our clever bombs on missions.”
With the president whose administration led the United States three years ago, with allegations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, several feet away from him in the sanctuary of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta. “We declared,” Raleigh said, “leading to war.” We know there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew there were millions without health insurance. There was a lot of poverty. Billions more for the poor, but no more for the poor.”
Reverend Lowery heard criticism of his funeral address, but he responded thoughtfully. “I certainly didn’t intend it to be bad manners,” he said. “I wanted to draw attention to the fact that Mrs. King spoke truth to power, and here is an opportunity to show how she spoke truth to power about this war and all wars. there was.”
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Bishop Badet offered similar reflections on her choice to call on mercy to her homilies. On Wednesday, I asked if she thought her message was being “misinterpreted and politicized.” she answered“Why couldn’t it be politicized? We’re in a hyperpolitical climate.”
But then the bishop explained: “One of the things I would caution against is the culture that we live in, where people are so quick to jump to the worst interpretations of what they’re saying, things like the one you’ve just described, etc. , to put them into categories. That’s part of the air we’re breathing right now. And I was trying to tell the truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it as respectfully and kindly as possible, and others. space for a while to bring voices that aren’t heard in public, to bring voices into the conversation.”
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