House Resolution 59, a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 23, condemned the sermon preached by Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde during the National Prayer Service two days earlier, which closed with a direct plea to President Donald Trump to show mercy.
“It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer service on Jan. 21, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism. The House of Representatives condemns the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message,” said the resolution drafted by Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.).
The resolution, cosponsored by 20 representatives, accused the Bishop of Washington of having “used her position inappropriately, promoting political bias instead of advocating the full counsel of biblical teaching.”
“I strongly urge my colleagues to act quickly on this resolution to show President Trump that the sermon given is not reflective of the faith community at large,” Brecheen wrote in a statement to The Daily Caller. The resolution has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Several talk shows gave Budde a platform to elaborate on her sermon, sometimes showering her with compliments. The View’s Joy Behar told Budde the day after the sermon that she seems “to have more fearlessness than anyone in Congress.”
“My responsibility was to pray with the nation for unity. What are the foundations of unity? I wanted to emphasize respect, honor, and dignity of every human being. Unity requires mercy and compassion. Many people are really scared,” Budde said.
Speaking with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Budde said she wanted “to appeal what we know to be true about our immigrant neighbors and an understanding of what it means to be American.”
“I was nervous, I was scared,” she said. “I think perhaps the reason why it had the impact that it did is for a while now there … hasn’t been much of a narrative outside of what the president has been describing. People have gone quiet, or they’ve been ignored. I had no idea who was paying attention.”
Interviewers asked Budde if she intended to speak directly to President Trump and Vice President Vance.
“It is an audacious thing to address anyone from the pulpit,” she told Maddow. “This was a service on the occasion of the Inauguration of the president, and if you look back at other sermons, there’s almost always a word to the president, so it wasn’t unusual in that way. But in the particular moment that we’re in, it occupied a space that hasn’t been filled for a while.”
The View’s Ana Navarro asked Budde whether she thought her words “sunk in, even a little” with the president and vice president. “I’ve been preaching for a long time, and I’ve long since given up trying to read people’s body language as I’m preaching, because I’m wrong most of the time. I was aware that people were listening,” Budde said.
“I just had to keep going,” she added. “I had what was on my heart to say, and I had to leave it to them — to all of us — to take from what my whatever my words were, to heart, and, as they say, to leave the rest to God.”
“How could it not be politicized?” she asked The View’s Sara Haines. “We’re in a hyper-political climate. One of the things I cautioned about is the culture of contempt in which we live … [which] immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying.”
“I was trying to speak a truth that I thought needed to be said, but to do it in as respectful and kind a way as I could,” she said.
Asked by Haines if she thought a one-on-one conversation with the president might have been more effective, Budde said, “I’ve never been invited into a one-on-one conversation with President Trump. I would welcome that opportunity, and I have no idea how that would go.
“I would assure him and anyone listening that I would be as respectful as I would with any person, and certainly of his office, for which I have a great deal of respect, but the invitation would have to come from him.”
Several of Budde’s fellow bishops have written to their dioceses commending her sermon. The Rt. Rev. Vincentia Kgabe, Bishop of Lesotho, said to Budde on Facebook, “Thank you for your ministry and leadership. Thank you for speaking the gospel truth with such humility and grace. Thank you for the powerful reminder that our task is to ‘preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.’”
Other Anglicans have expressed concern or frustration. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said on X on January 23, “As a conservative Episcopalian who supports President Trump and his agenda, I am profoundly disappointed that Bishop Mariann Budde politicized today’s inaugural Service of Prayer for the Nation.
“Sadly, the only message Bishop Budde delivered through her unwelcoming and hypocritical words to the President was that the Episcopal Church’s motto of ‘All are Welcome’ apparently doesn’t apply to the majority of Americans who voted for Donald Trump.”
The Irish Anglican author of the blog Laudable Practice called the sermon “blatantly political.”
“It did not rebuke the Left for failing to heed the moral vision of the Scriptures; its only interest was in rebuking the Right. It did not call progressives as well as conservatives to examine their values and policies in light of God’s exhortation to exercise mercy: it addressed this call only to conservatives and only to a policy area that conservatives are seeking to address,” he wrote.

Others on social media expressed enthusiasm for her words, sharing memes of Budde’s picture with the label “I’m with her” and a split screen with the caption “In a world full of Joel Osteens, be a Bishop Budde.”
The Hive Bakery in Flower Mound, Texas, sold out of 12 dozen cookies bearing Bishop Budde’s face surrounded by a wreath of white icing.
“This woman is a legend,” owner Haley Popp posted on Facebook. “I’ll come in bright and early tomorrow to get more done. We believe in this. We believe in her. We owe no apologies.”
The Rev. Callie Swanlund, an Episcopal priest in Philadelphia, has created a line of Bishop Budde-inspired T-shirts through her Wholehearted Studios ministry.
Available in several colors, they feature a clerical collar neckline and the label “Troublesome Priest,” borrowed from a Daily Beast article on the story, which referred to Henry II’s description of Thomas Becket.
The Rev. Meredyth Albright is a longtime journalist and rector of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.