MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — Almost exactly a year ago, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, stood in a pulpit in front of the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump and preached a sermon that called on the commander in chief to have “mercy” on immigrants and other communities.
The sermon quickly drew backlash from the president himself, who called her “a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who called her message “radical.”
But if Budde’s message was radical, it’s one that has resonated nonetheless. A year later, she stood in another church in Minneapolis, this time surrounded by an array of clergy who represented the hundreds of faith leaders who flocked to the city this week to protest the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
“In our varied and united faith traditions, love of neighbor is not optional,” Budde declared.
The bishop sat down with Religion News Service shortly after that appearance on Thursday (Jan. 22) to reflect on the year that has passed since her barn-burning sermon and on what she expects will be even more faith-based activism on behalf of immigrants.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What brought you out here? Why did you want to be a part of this particular convening?
The call was issued. This is my home state — where I raised my family. I saw how the ICE raids across the country have been happening — they seem to be increasing in intensity and in vitriol and brazenness. It just seemed like whenever there’s a possibility to show up and cast a light on that and shine a national spotlight, that felt really important.
You’re about a year removed from your sermon, in which you called on this administration to have mercy. JD Vance is actually here right now talking while we’re here. Do you have any reflections on that sermon now that you’re here with hundreds of clergy who are issuing a similar call that you did a year ago?
I don’t think a year ago we could have fathomed how quickly and how dramatically this country would change. The degree to which the goals and aspirations of the Trump administration as they came into office, how soon they would actually come into being and what it has cost the country. And then also, as has been said today, history is calling us to step up. I’m doing this for the country that I’m passing on to those coming up behind me and for the people who are here. It feels like a generational struggle. I wish it weren’t so, but here we are. And it’s our country to preserve and protect. It’s heartbreaking, but here we are.
Clergy members sing the hymn “We Rise” at a memorial honoring Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer, near the site of the shooting in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)
Some of your fellow bishops — in New Hampshire, in Minnesota — have called on clergy to “get their wills in order” and to be willing to put their bodies on the line to resist these mass deportation tactics. And we’ve seen clergy during protests hit with pepper balls and tear gas, even arrested. You talk about being brave; that sounds like a really difficult thing when the risks are this high.
I think people show up with courage in their own way, and we don’t all have to do the same thing. I think that’s really important. Most acts of courage are small and local and very relational. So I want to just say, that is probably the fabric that holds us all together. And then every once in a while people either step into a moment of great danger or more often than not they get swept up into it. Jonathan Daniels wasn’t planning on getting killed when he was out, he was buying a coke, right? Renee Good wasn’t planning on getting killed. She was driving her kid to school, right? So you don’t choose these moments, but you find yourself in them. And that, I suspect, is the price of being alive in certain moments of history. Thank goodness they’re mostly rare.
I would say to my people don’t be naive but also be safe. I want you to be here on the other side, right? And so that’s what I’m saying to my people. Be brave but be wise. And stand in solidarity with other people. And if things happen, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I’m not gonna go looking for it.
You serve DC, where there’s still troops on the streets. Are you pulling lessons from your own experience over the last year?
Right, ICE is also in Washington and in Maryland, and I have driven by people pulled out of their cars and arrested, young men just standing or driving somewhere being detained. That’s happening. People in our congregations and our immigrant congregations are as nervous about all the things you’re seeing here (in Minneapolis). It’s not the same scale, but it’s the same fear. And so I would say we’re watching the escalation of this process and this agency — that has been given more money and more opportunities for recruitment and brazen training that suggests they are immune from any accountability — being unleashed across our country. We’re seeing what it looks like when it’s given full license in one place. And that should give us all pause.
As you’ve been in conversations with clergy and congregations that you serve, is there a question or a concern that comes up a lot that you don’t see talked about often?
We are awash in a culture of contempt that is encouraging us to treat one another, particularly those with whom we might disagree, in the most dehumanizing and degrading ways. We’re all being socialized to do that. It’s infecting everything, whether we realize it or not. No matter where you stand on the spectrum, politically or theologically, we can all agree that is really killing us as a country, right? We don’t know how to have honest and respectful conversations across differences with a baseline of dignity. I think that we would go a long way in clearing out the real issues from the exacerbated ones that keep us on edge, like, all the time.
I need to be talking more to people who see the world differently. But it’s impossible if they look at me and I look at them through the lens of contempt and disregard.
It’s at the highest levels, but it’s also in our families. And we have more control over that than perhaps we realize. That’s what I’m encouraging my people to work on. Because not everyone agrees with what I just said today. I get that.
I have people whose families are in law enforcement and in the military. We all come from our perspectives. But if we can’t talk about these things in a way that brings us together as a country, if we don’t get those muscles back, our ability to come back from the most extremes of violence is diminished every day. So that’s what I’m kind of dedicating my life to.
