Reverend Addresses President Trump at Prayer Service, Asks Him to ‘Have Mercy’ for LGBTQ+ People and Immigrants

January 22, 2025 Duy191098 Blog 0

“Not too exciting, was it? I didn’t think it was a very good service, no,” Trump said of the sermon. “They could do much better.”

By Rachel Raposas is a Digital News Writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2024.

Published on January 21, 2025 04:01PM EST

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (L) arrives as U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Tuesday marks Trump's first full day of his second term in the White House.
Rev. Mariann Budde and President Donald Trump on Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty 

With newly-inaugurated leaders of the United States in attendance, Rev. Mariann Budde, an Episcopal bishop of Washington, gave a special sermon about the future of the country.

In her message, Budde, 65, spoke directly to President Donald Trump — who she has publicly criticized in the past, the Associated Press reported — about fostering an inclusive culture in the country that he now presides over on Tuesday, Jan. 21, just one day after the inauguration.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said, per the AP and New York Times. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender people in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives … and the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”

The reverend continued, asking that the group that had gathered for an interfaith service at the Washington National Cathedral “to pray for unity as a people and a nation — not for agreement, political or otherwise — but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division.”

In a video shared by the AP, reporters asked Trump, 78, what he thought of the inaugural prayer service. “Not too exciting, was it? I didn’t think it was a very good service, no,” he said as he made his way back to the White House. “They could do much better.”

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivers a sermon during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Tuesday marks Trump's first full day of his second term in the White House.
Rev. Mariann Budde at the National Cathedral on Jan. 21. Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Previously, during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Budde most notably criticized Trump for his performative photo op, in which he posed with a bible in hand in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church while tear gas was being used on peaceful demonstrators.

According to the AP, Budde was deeply upset by the president’s actions at the church, which fell under her diocese. She said that Trump had “no sense that this was a sacred space to be used for sacred purposes,” and the church was “just completely caught off-guard.”

Before the incident at St. John’s, Budde also criticized the president’s “racialized rhetoric” after he told four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from, the AP reported.

Bloomberg Best of the Year 2020: U.S. President Donald Trump poses with a bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church after a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, June 1, 2020.
Donald Trump posing with bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty 

Following the deadly Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, Budde once again condemned Trump, this time for his role in encouraging the violence. The same day, she made her position clear on via Facebook Live on alongside the dean of the Washington National Cathedral, Rev. Randy Hollerith.

“Let us be perfectly clear — to those who see this as a Christian endeavor, or something to be blessed in the name of Jesus, there is nothing Christian about what we are witnessing today. Nothing,” she said, per the AP.