WASHINGTON — It was an extraordinary and scathing statement from one of the celebrated centers of American spiritual life – a condemnation of the president’s scorn and spite, from a higher authority.
The leaders of the Washington National Cathedral called the president’s recent racist rhetoric “violent, dehumanizing words,” Twitter text providing dangerous cover to white supremacists.
The statement released Tuesday took the cathedral into new territory, actively asking a sitting president, “have we no decency?”
But top leadership at the Washington institution feared a likely outcome that virtual vitriol could continue – possibly devolving into violence.
As the faith leaders’ statement drew praise and criticism from political and religious quarters across the nation, a deeper question emerged: What would happen if President Trump waded into deeper racial animus, territory that would warrant further action from the cathedral?
In an interview Tuesday, WUSA9 asked Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, if there would ever be a point where the president was no longer welcome at the Cathedral.
The interview took on added urgency – and Bishop Budde ultimately declined to comment.
“I’m not going to address that here,” she said during the phone interview from Minneapolis.
“I’m not going to comment on that right now. So, my answer is, I don’t have a response to that right now, I don’t want to go there.”
The president invited about 20 inner-city pastors to the Oval Office Monday, including Alveda C. King, a niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The president is concerned about the whole nation, about everybody in the nation,” King told reporters on the White House driveway.
“So, I want us to remember, that we've been designed to be brothers and sisters. One member of the human race.”
Bishop Budde said she would welcome any opportunity to speak with the president, to call him and all Americans to the highest aspirations of the nation.
“I would really love to have that conversation with him, and to say that we need him to be a president for all people,” Bishop Budde said.
“To cross over into the level of insults that has become normative in political speech, and frankly, has become the expectation of the presidential Twitter feed, we believe that is unacceptable – and not just on political ground, but on moral grounds.”
She said she did not consider beforehand whether the president would ultimately fight back against the Cathedral’s statement.
But the faith leaders stand by their convictions.
“He has the highest capacity in this country to dial down the rhetoric,” Bishop Budde said. “If he did, everyone else would.”
“We pray that he has the wisdom and grace in the exercising of his duties to serve all the people of this nation and to preserve the dignity and creed of every person.”