Bishop who called on Trump to ‘have mercy’ on LGBTQ people, migrants is a former Minnesotan

A former rector from Minneapolis went viral on the first full day of President Donald Trump’s second term as she delivered a sermon directed at the commander in chief that asked him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” the Rev. Mariann Budde said Tuesday at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., with Trump in the front row.

The president is now demanding an apology. After he returned to the White House, Trump said, “I didn’t think it was a good service” and “they could do much better.” But later, in an overnight post on his social media site Truth Social, he sharply criticized the “so-called Bishop” as a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.”

”She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” Trump said.

”Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job!” Trump added. “She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Budde spent 18 years as a rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune dispatch about her promotion to bishop at the National Cathedral in 2011. During her time here, she grew the congregation at St. John’s from 100 parishioners to about 400.

Her first service at the National Cathedral was attended by 2,000 people. It was also the first sermon delivered in the building since an earthquake shook it months earlier.

Before she took the D.C. job, Budde led St. John’s as the church dealt with the theft of two quilts given to the congregation by Episcopal members of the White Earth Reservation. She waited a full day to file a police report, telling a Star Tribune reporter that she thought humanity would prevail and that the thieves would return the artifacts on their own.

“A part of me is searching for an explanation, a way to account for the loss, or better yet, to have the quilts return as mysteriously as they were taken away,” Budde wrote in a note to congregants.

She also was one of several religious leaders who attended a service on R.T. Rybak’s first day as mayor of Minneapolis in 2002. Rybak, like several other Minnesotans, noted Budde’s ties to the region on social media Tuesday.

“Almost no one had a deeper impact on my moral compass than Marianne Budde, who was our minister at St. John’s in Minneapolis during the time I was Mayor,” Rybak wrote on Facebook. “She stepped into the pulpit yesterday and showed the bravery we all need in this moment — to stand strongly for what we know is right, and speak strongly for those who most need us. This is the moment that marks what each of us is made of, and Marianne, once again, showed us the way.”

St. John’s current rector, the Rev. Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, called Budde’s words “a balm to my soul and absolutely consistent with what she preached at St John’s Linden Hills for 18 years.”

According to Heinsohn, St. John’s under Budde’s leadership was among the first churches to affirm LGBTQ people and support immigrant families.

“It was so good to hear a faith leader not flatter the president,” said Heinsohn, “but call him to the highest values of unity, humility and mercy — to call him to be president, not for the half of the country who voted for him, but for all of us, especially those who are most vulnerable.”

Also defending Budde was U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who at a press conference Wednesday said Trump’s remarks were “very telling about the kind of heart he has” and that it also demonstrated a lack of respect for members of the clergy.

Trump signed a raft of executive orders on his first day in office, many of them rollbacks of decrees by former President Joe Biden, one of which extended civil rights protections to LGBTQ workers. Another order Trump signed seeks to end birthright citizenship. Minnesota was one of 22 states that sued over that order almost immediately.

During her sermon, Budde pushed back against the misconception that immigrants commit crimes at high rates and told Trump that they’re the folks “who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals.”

“They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said. “They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”

Sydney Kashiwagi of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story. This story contains material from the Associated Press.