This morning, while folks were also sweeping away glitter and collecting empty champagne flute from the annual balls, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and their ladies attended the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. For the more liturgically-minded visitors and those hapless Episcopalians, the purchase of services can be found here.
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A certain amount of ecumenicism is to be expected and appreciated at for a company. Jesse J. Swann, Jr. , commander of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, gave the prayer. Rabbi Susan N. Shankman read from Deuteronomy 10:17-21, and doppler Susan Bortnick offered the Israeli call to prayer. There were the appropriate high-ranking users of the Episcopal Church and frontrunners from other Christian faiths, which is good since the country is not a uniform object.
Interestingly, there was a studying from the Koran by Dr. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim, the associate Imam at Masjid Muhammad ( The Nation’s Mosque ), and the Muslim call to prayer led by Cantor Shayhk Akbar Sharrief, chiefmu’adhin of the same mosque. One may understand the need for equality, but at the same time, Islam makes no bones about its reject and disdain for various religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity. But the procedures must be observed, I suppose.
The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington delivered the speech. Much of the sermon was dedicated to the idea that now is the time for all of us to get on. There was talk of unity and loving one’s cousin. However, the assumption was mostly directed at Trump and, to an level, Vance. And even if Budde had never called upon the chairman, there could be no mistaking the purpose of the last article:
Permit me make one last appeal, Mr. President. Thousands have put their trust in you, and as you told the country yesterday, you have felt the divine hand of a comforting God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country, and we’re scared today. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender kids in Democrat, Republican, and separate people, some who fear for their lives and the persons who pick our vegetables and clear our office properties, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing 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. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadhara, and temples. 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 will all want strangers in this land.
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Bishop Budde, if LGBTQ people are afraid, it is largely because of the rhetoric that anyone opposed to transgenderism is a proponent of “genocide. ” You may have missed it, but a fair number of gays and lesbians oppose the transgender movement because of its sexualization of children. Most conservatives I know really don’t care what consenting adults do with one another. If you don’t believe that, perhaps you should meet more conservatives. There is a whole world outside the echo chamber.
Are you prepared to apologize to parents whose only” crime” was not wanting their children to be exposed to pornography or racial hatred? Are you willing to make amends with them after governments attacked them for simply wanting to keep their children safe? Do you believe it was just, proper, and right to expose small children to sexually charged drag shows? What help will you offer those whose minds, souls, and bodies begin to break down from surgeries, drugs, and hormones? What aid will you give to the detransitioners?
What reconciliation will you offer to the women who became second-class citizens behind men who wanted to compete in women’s sports, haunt women’s bathrooms, and engage in their fetishes? How will you reach out to the girls injured by men playing in women’s sports or to Riley Gaines, forced to hide from a crowd of thugs lusting for her blood?
Will you reach out to Mark Houck, who was arrested and his family held at gunpoint in the wee hours of the morning on the basis of an untrue accusation of a violation of the FACE Act? Do “reproductive rights” only go one way, or will you help rebuild the pregnancy centers vandalized by pro-abortion radicals? Is life not also a choice?
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Will you apologize to the black, Latino, gay, lesbian, Asian, and other people who looked beyond the wild-eyed rhetoric of your compatriots to find common ground with those vile “MAGATS” and who were subjected to all manner of racial and sexual insults, slurs and threats?
Will you apologize to Jews in universities and across the nation and admonish those who engaged in violence on behalf of Palestine?
You seem to care about immigration a great deal. Will you work to stop the flow of fentanyl across the border? Will you help those Americans in Chicago, New York, and other blue cities who have found themselves unable to access housing, food, or medical care because governments have prioritized illegal immigrants? Will you work to heal the wounds of those who have lost loved ones to crimes committed by illegals? Will you house those forced out of their homes by Venezuelan gangs? Will you pledge to stop the human trafficking? Will you find homes for those minors shunted aside into slavery by HHS?
And what of the “vast majority of immigrants” who are not criminals? Will you acknowledge that under the previous administration, they were followed here by the very forces of evil that they sought to escape? Will you ask them to be accountable to the nation they have come to? Will you demand that the businesses and politicians who have benefited from illegal immigration face scrutiny?
Will you call to account Antifa and BLM, who put cities to the torch and assaulted people?
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Will you rebuke the Biden family and the warmongers on the Left and the Right who saw dollar signs in the war in Ukraine?
Will you demand that those politicians, including those on the Left, who made profits in the stock market via their positions be held accountable?
Will you stand up to BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard? Will you join in calling Big Pharma on the carpet?
You are worried about Trump. Will you even consider the corruption and lies that were endemic to the previous administration?
Will you hold your own people to the standard to which you wish to retain the opposition?
You won’t do any of those things because they conflict with your smug, myopic version of” justice. ” And I know of what I speak. I was a Leftist and an Episcopalian for 40 years. You have more than one plank in your eye and spend too much time thanking God that you are” not like that tax collector. ” You demand everything from the other side and nothing from your own.
And so, yet again, we see that when you progressives find yourselves without the reins of power in your hands, you are eager to sue for peace and demand mercy, compassion, and understanding — things which, when you were in control, you were in no mood to grant to your enemies. Now, you seek a truce when months ago, you wanted war.
Rt. Rev. Budde, when you were consecrated as bishop, you were given a mitre and a crook. As a priest, you were given vestments, and if I know the Episcopal Church ( and I do ), you likely have a pectoral cross roughly the size of a railroad trestle. These are not mere trappings of office, as impressive as they may be. Your crook represents the mandate to shepherd your priests. Your stole, the yoke of Christ, a reminder that you are to bear his burdens on this earth. The cross? That is a reminder of the greatest sacrifice made in the history of the world by a Savior you promised to serve.
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And yet you have no words of admonishment or guidance for your own flock. You will happily embrace the inflammatory rhetoric and even violent actions of your side and will be content to turn a deaf ear to those whose opinions differ from your own. Christ, whom you serve, called such people Pharisees and hypocrites. He also noted, “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues. ”
The entire service is below:
