After standing up to Trump, D.C. bishop has a new children's book about bravery

In January 2025, President Donald Trump kicked off his second term with an immediate slew of executive orders aimed at restricting immigration and LGBTQ rights. But on his second day in office, he sat quietly in the first pew at Washington National Cathedral, listening to a soft-spoken cleric ask him to have compassion for the marginalized. 

In that morning prayer service, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, gave a sermon that would quickly go viral, landing her interviews on The View and CBS Mornings.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said, looking directly at the president. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

She further asked Trump to have mercy on gay, lesbian, and transgender children, “some who fear for their lives.” Several members of the new administration were visibly uncomfortable — including Trump himself, who later lambasted the sermon. In the weeks that followed, the cathedral put a 24/7 security team around her, and Budde received at least one credible threat, she says. 

Standing up to a sitting president requires bravery. But after more than a decade in the role, leading a diocese of roughly 38,000 people in and around the nation’s capital, the 66-year-old bishop has grown accustomed to her faith leadership mixing with politics.

“Sometimes, I would try to insert myself in public debates,” Budde told The 51st in a recent interview. “And quite honestly, sometimes the debates came to us.”

Under her tenure, the National Cathedral held a celebration of life and interment for Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered 20 years prior. The cathedral replaced its stained glass windows depicting Confederate generals with images of racial justice. And Budde was outspoken in 2020, when Trump posed with a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church after National Guard troops tear gassed peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square. 

These days, Budde is mostly staying out of the national spotlight. She’s busy overseeing the diocese’s 84 churches and 10 schools, alongside writing books and a newsletter. But her latest message is not for world leaders or congregants — it’s aimed at the littlest among us. 

In July, she published a children’s book, I Can Learn to Be Brave, inspired by a similar book she wrote for adults in 2023 and another version for young adults that came out last year. We spoke with the bishop ahead of her book signing at the 2026 National Book Festival, hosted by the Library of Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Aug. 22.

Our conversation below is lightly edited for length and clarity.

You wrote your children’s book, I Can Learn to Be Brave, as an adaptation of some of your other writings. How did this idea come together?

Back in 2020, right after the George Floyd murder, and when President Trump walked across Lafayette Square and held up his Bible in front of one of our churches, I remember thinking, “I'd really like to write about how, over the course of our lives, we learn through those moments that I called a ‘decisive moment’ — when we realize we have to make a decision, and we're conscious of it. Even as we're making the decision, we know that it's important.

An agent approached me, and I just started reflecting on that and all the different ways that those can happen. The original title was: Decisive Moments: How We Learn to Be Brave. And they said, no, we're going to flip it — How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith. I've seen it in my own life. I see it in the life of the people I serve. Certainly, I see it in history, in literature, and movies. So that was how it got started. And the children's book was really such a natural thing.

My youngest grandson is 9 months old, and I see it even in him. Every day, he’s learning to do something he’s never done before. 

I've got three grandchildren, two kids in their 30s. It’s those moments … like, okay, you're gonna get on the school bus for the first time. You're gonna walk into a school lunch room for the first time. You're gonna step onto a soccer field. Every one of them is a new frontier. So it was fun to play with that idea and to remember what it felt like, and then some of the lessons that we learned along the way. 

I love the personal aspect — that you have several children in your life. Were you thinking of them as you were writing this book?

For the first book, I had a lot of examples of my kids' life in my head, but I didn't write about them … I was asked to adapt a young readers version of the book, and again I didn't [include them]. But I realized that they were with me the whole time. The picture book definitely had not only my own grandchildren, but also my kids, and frankly, some of my earliest memories. 

The story is about a not-so-brave girl and a brave girl, and I was clearly the not-so-brave girl. 

I remember watching my older sister do things that looked easy that I couldn't do, and I was tempted to quit a lot of things because I didn't think I was good at them. So this story is trying to say to a little girl like that: You can learn to climb a hill. Falling down doesn't mean that you failed. It means that you try again. You can ask for help. 

As we learn those things, we also learn to do things that we didn't think we could do. It's really the only way.

What advice do you have for anyone who's trying to be brave in D.C.?

I have been persuaded by the wisdom of the likes of Bryan Stevenson [the public interest lawyer, author, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative] and others who say, the best way to be brave is to show up close to your life. We can't be brave about things if we aren't getting close to the people who are affected by whatever it is we're wanting to be brave about. And I don't think any of us have to look very far. 

In our neighborhood, there's an elementary school, or there are elders who are living in their house alone that could use a helping hand. There are nonprofits that are trying to do good, and they have greater demands on their time with diminishing resources. 

And by being brave, I mean just stepping out beyond our daily routines to just look around and say, okay, where might I be a blessing to another person? You don't always experience that as courage, but it's when you start asking that question and following where it takes you, opportunities to be brave will follow. There is a great need for us to be connected and present in a time when there's a lot conspiring to keep us isolated and afraid.

You came to D.C. in November 2011 after 18 years as a rector for a church in Minneapolis. This city is inherently a very political place. Did you feel prepared at all for the politics of Washington? 

I'm not sure that anything could prepare someone for coming into Washington, D.C., and the political realities [of living here]. In my role as bishop, my primary work is to support the congregations, the clergy, and the people of the churches and the schools within our diocese. 

I had the sense that if I spent all of my time paying attention to the political life of the city and of the communities I served, I would just be utterly distracted. I quickly learned that if I wanted to go to a social event or a political discussion, I could go every day of the week. So I picked a few, and that was how I made my way in the early years. 

Would you say you've gotten better at that balance? Having been in this role for nearly 15 years, has it gotten any easier?

Well, I would have said, “yes, it got easier” until the beginning of the second Trump administration. And it’s not just because of how I may differ from the president, but the impact [his administration has] had on the region. The number of people who lost their jobs, the number of nonprofits whose funding was just decimated, certainly the impact on the immigrant community. And none of these things were abstract issues for me or for the congregations I serve. These were people that I knew and loved, people whose life's work had been just taken from them, that not only had to leave but watch their life's work be dismantled. 

So I would say all the balances have been off since the beginning of 2025. We're finding a new equilibrium now, and people go on with their lives. But the issues are not simple. It's deeply, deeply impactful. As a spiritual leader of the region, I have to pay attention to that. I would say it's taken up far more of my time and energy than I would have ever anticipated in the first years.

What has life been like for you since your viral sermon during the inauguration prayer service? Have you had time to reflect?

Oh my gosh, yes …

Maybe too much time?

No, no. (Laughs.) Not everybody thought what I said was appropriate. But I would say the vast majority of people were deeply grateful. So I'm enjoying a level of connection with the people of Washington that I didn't have before, and I'm grateful for that. I'd been involved in local issues, gun prevention issues, certainly immigration reform — but nothing quite like this last year. 

You definitely have fans, Bishop Budde. I told someone I was interviewing you, and she said her mom loves you.

A lot of moms love me! I talk to a lot of people who say, “Oh, my mom loves you.” And I say, “Well, tell her I said hi.”

You’re clearly making an impact. In the sermon, you called for mercy for immigrants and the most vulnerable in our region and beyond. Has your message to this current administration — and society at large — changed over the last year and a half?

I don't know that my message has changed, but it's sharpened because I'm paying attention to it more. I'm paying attention to the swings in our society and trying to stay true, as a Christian, to the central teachings of Jesus and our faith. And trying to make sure that I'm living according to the things I say, which of course is hard. It’s a lot easier to criticize other people than to hold up the mirror and say, "Well, Mariann, how are you doing with these things?”

The other thing I would say is, I'm just trying to keep hope, to be a person of hope, and not in a Pollyanna sort of way, but in a spiritual practice sort of way. These days that feels increasingly important.

It's important and not easy. I'm curious, where do you go in D.C. if you ever need to decompress?

I'm so grateful for Rock Creek Park. I cannot tell you how grateful I am. I love to ride a bicycle, so I often bike through the city. I sometimes commute to work, which is also fun.