Who is Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop who pleaded with Trump?

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, whose direct appeal to President Trump for mercy on behalf of immigrants and the LGBTQ community made headlines Tuesday, also publicly criticized Mr. Trump during his first term.

Bishop Budde, 65, is the first woman to serve as spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and she has led the diocese since 2011.

Before moving to Washington, she spent nearly two decades as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She is an alumna of the University of Rochester in upstate New York, and she grew up partly in New Jersey and partly in Colorado. She enjoys biking around Washington.

Since last summer, his diocese, which includes the National Cathedral, planned to hold a prayer service the day after the inauguration, regardless of who won the presidency. No matter the outcome, she intended to preach, she said.

In 2020, Bishop Budde wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in which she said she was “outraged” and “horrified” by Mr. Trump’s use of the Bible, which he held up in the air at Saint-Jean Church after police used tear gas against demonstrators. for racial justice near Lafayette Square. She wrote that Mr. Trump had “used sacred symbols” while “taking positions antithetical to the Bible.”

On Tuesday, she again had a message for Mr. Trump.

As the president sat outside the church, she closed his sermon by urging him “to have pity on the people of our country who are afraid now.”