President Trump’s former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in his first term, Ben Carson, is piling on the MAGA criticism of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who at a National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration asked Trump to show mercy to LGBTQ children and immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Trump responded to the sermon on Truth Social by writing: “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” The President is demanding a public apology.
Budde’s “nasty in tone” and “not compelling” remarks included a direct plea to Trump: “I ask you 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. And the people, the people 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…”
Budde continued: “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”
Carson, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, wrote of the Bishop’s sermon: “These are words you would expect to hear from a barista, not a Bishop.”
These are words you would expect to hear from a barista, not a Bishop.
— Ben & Candy Carson (@RealBenCarson) January 21, 2025
She isn’t brave, or strong, or a unifier. She’s another pawn of the left whose Trump Derangement Syndrome has blinded her from truth or reason. She’s an activist.
It’s disgraceful on many accounts. https://t.co/7aaPMqIXda
Carson said the Bishop “isn’t brave, or strong, or a unifier,” and accused her of being “an activist.”
[Note: The history of bishops being activists includes Desmond Tutu, the late South African Anglican bishop and theologian who was known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist, and American civil rights activist Bishop Alexander Walters, who helped establish the National Afro-American League and later, the Afro-American Council.]
Some on X are defending the Bishop with words from the Bible including Zechariah 7:9-10 (NIV): “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'”
Budde isn’t the only clerical figure appealing to Trump to show mercy. Pope Francis, who told American Catholics deciding between two uninspired choices to vote for the “lesser evil” in November, congratulated Trump on his election victory, but also told an Italian TV show that Trump’s plan of mass deportation is “a disgrace.”
The Pope also wrote to Trump directly: “Inspired by your nation’s ideals of being a land of opportunity and welcome for all, it is my hope that under your leadership, the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion.”
