The misstep creates worldwide headlines
By Mary Ann Mueller
VOL Special Correspondent
January 26, 2025
The Episcopal Church is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. This time it is because Bishopette Mariann Budde (IX Washington, DC) took newly-reinaugurated President Donald Trump to task over his southern border policies designed to stem foreign asylum seekers from flowing across the US/Mexico border without first going through proper immigration channels as my own Norwegian-born mother did 100 years ago when she came through Ellis Island.
My mother, Ragnhild Sather, was one of the 12 million Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Italians, Irish and others who came seeking a new life in America who, from 1892 through 1954, were legally processed through the Ellis Island immigration portal.
Mother first went to her family in Minnesota. Her Aunt Hannah (Grandma Belinda Sather's sister) settled in Otter Tail County. Then Mother headed to Washington State where she met and married my father, Robert Mueller, in Seattle and where I was born. And it was in Seattle that she also died when I was yet a babe-in-arms. I have no memory of her, and that has always haunted me.
Getting back to Bishopette Budde. The National Cathedral has historically played a super-sized role in the spiritual life of the nation. It is there that the country comes to pray as a nation since the Episcopal cathedral is considered a house of prayer for all people; grieve as a nation (state funerals), rejoice as a nation (post-inaugural presidential prayer services); and be spiritually unified as one nation under God invisible (9/11).
Most recently the National Cathedral hosted former President Jimmy Carter's state funeral, drawing together then-sitting President Joe Biden, former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama; and then President-elect Donald Trump under a single vaulted cathedral ceiling regardless of their political persuasion (Democrat or Republican) to show their unified respect to the man who once preceded each of them to the Oval Office and now precedes them in death.
On Tuesday (Jan. 21), less than 24 hours after President Trump took the Presidential Oath of Office, Bishopette Budde used the occasion of a National Cathedral-hosted prayer service to lambaste the new President from her Episcopal pulpit over his immigration policies. She turned the raised carved stone Canterbury pulpit into a political bully pulpit and the world took notice.
Quickly the Episcopal bishopette was dubbed the “Woke Bishop” by the media.
It's not the first time that an Episcopal bishop – or Presiding Bishop – has held his captive audience slack-jawed.
In May of 2018 the XXVII Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church crossed “The Pond” to preach at Prince Harry's Church of England royal wedding to black American actress Meghan Markle. The black Presiding Bishop Michael Curry decided it was time to school the British Royal Family on 19th century Southern slavery and American civil rights referencing Martin Luther King, Jr. to emphasize his point.
Members of the Royal Family sat in shock with their mouths agape.
Both Episcopal bishops felt they were “speaking truth to power.” In both instances their messages fell flat but they did manage to garner worldwide headlines.
Another Episcopal bishop, who was not shy about garnering headlines was – and occasionally still is creating press attention – Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson (IX New Hampshire). Where Bishopette Budde is dubbed the “Woke Bishop” by the press Bishop Robinson's headline moniker is the “Gay Bishop.”
Bishopette Budde, Presiding Bishop Curry, and Bishop Robinson have each, in their turn, twisted their pulpits into bully pulpits to rail against some perceived injustice – immigration (Budde); racism (Curry); or the gay pride agenda (Robinson). Since the National Cathedral looms large in the American spiritual psyche each of these three bishops have preached from its pulpit.
As bishops Jesus Christ should be the sermon topic from any pulpit a bishop – Episcopal … Roman Catholic … Lutheran … Methodist … et al – preaches.
It is a bishop's responsibility to see to it that the Gospel is powerfully preached, with the Sacraments are being faithfully celebrated and joyfully received thus leading their flock into a closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ, God’s one and only dearly begotten Son.
However, the National Cathedral has intersected with politics for more than a century.
It has hosted five presidential state funerals including: Dwight Eisenhower (1969); Ronald Reagan (2004); Gerald Ford (2007); George H.W. Bush (2018); and most recently Jimmy Carter (2025).
It also conducted six presidential memorial services including: Warren Harding (1923); William Taft (1930); Calvin Coolidge (1933); Harry Truman (1972); and Richard Nixon (1994). And other memorial services were held for civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968); anti-apartheid activist, Nelson Mandela (2014); and the Queen of England, Elizabeth II (2022).
Then, of course, there are the ten post inaugural Presidential Prayers Services which are designed to help prayerfully launch the new president into his administration. Those services include: Franklin Roosevelt's second administration (1937); Ronald Reagan’s second administration (1985); George H.W. Bush’s only administration (1989); George W. Bush's first and second administrations (2001 & 2005); Barack Obama's first and second administrations (2009 & 2013); Donald Trump's first administration (2017); Joe Biden's only administration (2021); and Donald Trump's second administration (2025).
Also, several national, political, military and civil figures are also interred at the National Cathedral including: the only Admiral-of-the-Navy George Dewey (1917); President Woodrow Wilson (1924); Secretary of State and Noble Peace Laureate Frank Kellogg (1937); First Lady Edith Wilson (1961); disability advocate Helen Keller (1968); and gay activist Matthew Shephard (2018).
In addition, eight Episcopal bishops and one Episcopal priest are buried within the walls of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul which is the formal name of the National Cathedral.
Historically the Episcopal bishops of Diocese of Washington are buried within the confines of their Cathedral including: Henry Satterlee (I Washington) 1908; Alfred Harding (II Washington) 1923; James Freeman (III Washington) 1943; Angus Dun (IV Washington) 1971; William Creighton (V Washington) 1987; John Walker (VI Washington) 1989; Ronald Haines (VII Washington) 2008; and Thomas Claggett (I Maryland) 1816.
The Episcopal Diocese of Washington was sliced out of the Diocese of Maryland in 1895. Bishop Claggett is the first Episcopal bishop to be consecrated in America and he also served as Chaplain to the US Senate which earned him the honor of being reinterred in the National Cathedral. He was initially buried in the Claggett Cemetery in Croom, Maryland but moved to Washington, DC in 1898.
The VIII and IX bishops of Washington – John Chane and Mariann Budde, respectively – are still living.
In addition, the V. Rev. Francis Sayre, Jr. is also interred at the National Cathedral. He holds the distinction of being the longest tenured Dean of the National Cathedral, serving from 1951 to 1978.
At this point in time there are no other Episcopal clergy buried within the National Cathedral.
Slowly through the years as the National Cathedral rolled out its Episcopal red carpet of welcome the cathedral's spiritual emphasis has shifted from a purely Anglican Book of Common Prayer Christocentric focus to interdenominational ecumenical ceremonies and eventually intertwining an interfaith spiritual expression which includes active non-Christian participation.
Bishopette Budde has crossed swords with President Trump before. She was livid in June 2020 when the President ventured across Lafayette Square for an ill-advised photo op at St. John's Episcopal Church during the height of the George Floyd Black Lives Matter protests. The President displayed a Bible in front of the St. John's church sign.
“The President just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus," the Washington bishopette said in 2020. “He took the symbols sacred to our tradition and stood in front of a house of prayer in full expectation that would be a celebratory moment.”
The Washington bishopette's disdain for President Trump stems back to his first administration when she came to consider him inflaming violence through speech and actions and having a divisive and immoral leadership style. She participated in the Black Lives Matters protests.
On January 21, 2017, as the IX Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC, a post she has held since 2011, Mariann Budde warmly welcomed the newly-inaugurated first term President to her “house of prayer for people to mark this moment of political transition” for an Episcopal interfaith prayer service. There was no scathing sermon, merely unified prayer albeit interdenominational – Episcopal, Evangelical, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterian, Baptist, and non-denominational Christian – as well as interfaith – Mormon, Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i and Navajo.
Eight years later a similar cast of religious characters showed up for President Trump's second interdenominational and interfaith presidential prayer service on January 21, 2025.
It was the V. Rev. Randy Hollerith, the XI Dean of the National Cathedral, who welcomed the worshippers to the Service of Prayer for the Nation, not Bishopette Budde. She had something else up her rochet’s snowy-white sleeve.
This time the cast of pray-ers included: Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Lurheran, Native American, Jewish, Momon, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and Sikh.
Then Bishopette Budde ascended the pulpit and skewered President Trump thus making ongoing worldwide headlines and shifting the focus from what should have been a spiritual emphasis into a political dagger.
Bishopette Budde's sermon sent shockwaves through the Anglican world. Episcopal priests are having to deal with upset parishioners – regardless of their political persuasion – who are hurt and confused and angry that an Episcopal prayer service at the most prominent Episcopal cathedral in the nation was turned into a political event.
Anglicans are the best when it comes to ecclesial pomp and ceremony. The Church of England did a masterful job at conducting Queen Elizabeth II's funeral or hosting Royal weddings.
Most recently (January 9, 2025) the National Cathedral conducted President Jimmy Carter's State Funeral with aplomb and without missing a step.
The National Cathedral knows how to put its best foot forward and show to the world the majesty and splendor of Anglican worship giving honor and glory to God.
But when it came to last week's Presidential Prayer Service the cathedral tripped over a bishop's crozier.
Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline
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