The bishop of the
Episcopal Diocese of Washington sharply criticized President Donald
Trump on Monday for staging a visit to the historic St. John’s Church
across from the White House, where he held up a Bible after authorities
had cleared the area of peaceful protesters.
The
Rev. Mariann Budde, whose diocese St. John’s belongs to, said in a
statement that she was “outraged” by Trump’s visit and noted that he
didn’t pray while stopping by the church, a landmark known for its
regular visits from sitting presidents since the early 19th century.
“He
took the symbols sacred to our tradition and stood in front of a house
of prayer in full expectation that would be a celebratory moment,” Budde
said in an interview after her statement on Trump’s visit was posted to
the diocese’s Twitter account.
“There
was nothing I could do but speak out against that,” she added, calling
for a focus on “the deeper wounds of the country” amid ongoing
demonstrations against racial injustice.
Budde
said the church was “just completely caught off-guard” by the visit,
with “no sense that this was a sacred space to be used for sacred
purposes.” In order to facilitate Trump’s statement there, she said, she
believed tear gas was used in the area between the White House and the
church.
As
protests nationwide flared following the police killing of George Floyd
in Minneapolis, St. John’s suffered minor damage Sunday night from a
fire in the church basement. Budde said “our suffering was minimal”
compared with businesses that were destroyed by recent looting, even as
she defended the goals of peaceful protesters responding to Floyd’s
killing.
“We can
rebuild the church. We can replace the furnishings of a nursery,” she
said, referring to the damaged area. “We can’t bring a man’s life back.”
The
presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, issued his own
statement saying that Trump had “used a church building and the Holy
Bible for partisan political purposes.”
“This
was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action
did nothing to help us or to heal us,” added Curry, the first African
American to hold that leadership post for U.S. Episcopalians.
Budde took her position at the church in Washington in 2011 after spending 18 years in Minneapolis.
“I
want to build up the liberal church again so we can be a legitimate
conversation partner in the public arena,” she told The Washington Post
at the time.
The bishop, who last year joined other Washington National Cathedral leaders in a statement that excoriated
Trump’s “racialized rhetoric,” firmly aligned her faith with the goals
of peaceful protesters driven by Floyd’s death to decry systemic racism.
“In
no way do we support the President’s incendiary response to a wounded,
grieving nation,” Budde said in her statement. “In faithfulness to our
Savior who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align
ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd.”
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In one of the videos of the incident shared online, rioters can be been ripping down the Americal flag hanging outside the church and appear to toss the flag into a nearby fire. A glass door or window was also allegedly shattered.
“This church has been standing in our city since the early 1800s. Please avoid the area,” the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia said on Twitter on Sunday.
Washington DC police said a small fire was deliberately set in the basement of the parish house, which holds offices and the church’s nursery. Under police escort, DC firefighters quickly extinguished it. Fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said the blaze did not appear to cause any significant damage. No one from the church was reportedly in the building when the incident took place.
St. John’s Episcopal Church was built in 1815 and its first service was Oct. 27, 1816. It’s often called the “church of the presidents.” According to the church website, every president since James Madison has attended at least one service there.
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