The Bishop Who Displeased Trump Not to Apologize for Asking for Compassion
Episcopalian Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, 2025. X/ @cspan
January 23, 2025 Hour: 1:23 pm
“I don’t feel there is a need to apologize for a plea for mercy. I don’t hate him, and I pray for him,” said Mariann Budde.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who urged U.S. President Donald Trump to show compassion for migrants and transgender children, stated that she does not intend to apologize, as requested by the Republican politician.
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Previously, Trump said that Budde has “an unpleasant tone” and is “neither persuasive nor intelligent,” sparking a controversy that has drawn significant media attention.
“I don’t feel there is a need to apologize for a plea for mercy. I don’t hate him, and I pray for him,” said the Episcopal bishop, who denied being “a left-wing radical” who hates Trump, as the U.S. president described her.
On Thursday, The New York Times published an article titled “The Bishop Who Pleaded with Trump: ‘Was Anyone Going to Say Anything?’” that praises Budde, 65, the first woman to hold that position in her church, for her stance in confronting political power.
“Perhaps it was naïve of me. When I decided to plead with the President for compassion, I thought it would be taken differently because it was an acknowledgment of his position, his current power, and the millions of people who put him there,” she said.
On Tuesday, Budde officiated a religious ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral. At one point, addressing Trump, who is Presbyterian, she said, “Millions of people have placed their trust in you. And as you said to 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 afraid.”
A day later, Trump, who has already taken initial steps to curb what he calls an “invasion of migrants,” asked Budde to apologize for her remarks. While she refuses to apologize, Budde does regret that her words provoked the kind of response they did, in the sense that “they confirmed what I was talking about earlier—that is, our tendency to become outraged and not speak to one another respectfully.”
“To be united as a country with such a rich diversity, we need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy,” added Budde, who considers it dangerous to make generalizations and to speak of immigrants “as if they were all criminals or of transgender children as if they were somehow dangerous.”
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
