Matt Walsh on Mariann Budde

If bad ideas had a spokesperson, it would look a lot like Mariann Budde, the so-called bishop of Washington for the Episcopal Church. They say not to judge a  book by its cover, but sometimes the cover tells you everything. When you see someone like Budde, dressed in clerical robes, you can almost predict exactly what’s coming: a sermon full of woke platitudes and ideological grandstanding. And that’s exactly what Trump—and the rest of us—got during the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral this week.

To understand why her lecture was so predictable, let’s go back to the summer of 2020. After George Floyd’s death, riots erupted across the country, cheered on by figures like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Washington, D.C., was no exception. BLM and Antifa vandalized monuments, looted businesses, and attacked law enforcement. St. John’s Episcopal Church—a historic landmark known as the “Church of the Presidents”—was set on fire. Secret Service officers were injured, and Trump was forced to take shelter in the White House bunker. Despite the chaos and destruction, the Left justified it all as a necessary response to “systemic racism.

Mariann Budde, the bishop responsible for St. John’s at the time, had a choice. She could have condemned the violence or defended her church. Instead, she went on PBS to criticize Donald Trump. Her complaint? That Trump had the audacity to stand in front of the burned church and survey the damage. She accused him of “using the mantle of the church to communicate a political message.” The hypocrisy is astonishing. Budde has spent her career using her clerical title to promote left-wing ideology. Yet when her church was set ablaze, she made Trump—not the arsonists—the villain of the story."