“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President”: Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and the Power of Place in Pastoral Prophetic Preaching

On January 21, 2025, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke with the authority of a bishop standing in her Cathedral pulpit, situated within her Diocese of Washington. Both in her sermon and in the way she responded to the swirl of public attention that followed, Budde modeled the power of pastoral preaching imbued with the power of place. She modeled, too, a way of preaching that is at once pastoral and prophetic: built on the foundations of honoring human dignity, being honest, embodying humility, and extending mercy to all God’s children. Bishop Budde crafted a homily in which she argued that working together for unity would provide a solid moral foundation for the nation, identifying character traits that all could enact. Her plea for those gathered, near and far, to open their hearts to being guided by a Gospel of mercy was, indeed, a message for all the world to hear.