Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, whose direct appeal to President Trump for mercy on behalf of immigrants and the L.G.B.T.Q. community made headlines on Tuesday, was also publicly critical of Mr. Trump during his first term.
Bishop Budde, 65, is the first woman to serve as the spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and she has led the diocese since 2011.
Before moving to Washington, she spent nearly two decades as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She is an alumna of the University of Rochester in upstate New York, and she grew up partially in New Jersey and partially in Colorado. She enjoys biking around Washington.
Since last summer her diocese, which includes the National Cathedral, planned to host a prayer service the day after the inauguration regardless of who won the presidency. No matter the outcome, she intended to preach, she said.
In 2020, Bishop Budde wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times saying that she was “outraged” and “horrified” by Mr. Trump’s use of the Bible, which he held aloft at St. John’s Church after officers used tear gas against protesters for racial justice in nearby Lafayette Square. She wrote that Mr. Trump had “used sacred symbols” while “espousing positions antithetical to the Bible.”
On Tuesday, she again had a message for Mr. Trump.
With the president seated in the front of the church, she closed her sermon by urging him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”