“As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

At an ominous moment in American history, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC following President Trump’s second inauguration was a rare moment of moral clarity. Growing out of the most fundamental principles of Christian ethics, Bishop Budde’s address stands as a calm but resonant call for compassion in an increasingly vicious and punitive political culture.