Latest news with #MariannEdgarBudde
Washington Post
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Episcopal bishop criticized by President Trump has a 2-book deal with young readers publisher
NEW YORK — The Episcopal bishop who in January angered President Donald Trump has a deal for two books for young people. Both are based on the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde's best-selling 'How We Learn to Be Brave.' Penguin Young Readers announced Wednesday that it will release a young adult edition, adapted by novelist Bryan Bliss and titled 'We Can Be Brave,' on Oct. 25. The picture book 'I Can Learn to Be Brave,' with illustrations by Holly Hatam, is scheduled for the summer of 2026.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
An idea for Democrats: take back religious freedom and the moral mandate of faith
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who was a priest at St. John's Episcopal in Minneapolis for 18 years, delivers a sermon during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by. Stories gain a momentum all their own, and that's especially true of political stories. We see it in the wake of the 2024 election, where a narrow but decisive loss has been blown up into an epic shellacking that plunged the Democratic Party's brand deep into the toilet. Now we have the New York Times writing headlines like 'Trump Leaves Democrats dazed and on the defensive.' It reminds me of the 'Dems are in Disarray' storyline that was such a common trope that it became an inside joke among online Dems as far back as the Obama years. In our protean, zero attention-span culture, what's here today can be gone tomorrow, so let's keep our heads up and scout opportunities to change the storyline. Already I see an early path out of the political wilderness emerging. Ironically, it comes under the banner of religious freedom. Ironic because we tend to think of religious freedom as a divisive Republican issue — a high school football coach demanding the right to pray out loud like a Pharisee during games, no matter what the kids entrusted to him for guidance may or may not believe. Or churches refusing to protect their parishioners from exposure to COVID-19 during depths of the pandemic. The opportunity here is for Democrats to lean into religious freedom and the love and compassion required of us by the great religions. Maybe you heard the brave words Episcopal Bishop — and former rector at St. John's Episcopal in Minneapolis — Mariann Edgar Budde spoke from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral at the inaugural prayer service. Her sermon calling for compassion and mercy for migrants and other marginalized people left the new president squirming in his pew, and then taking to social media to attack her as a 'so-called bishop' and 'Radical Left hard line Trump hater.' That is hogwash, of course. The bishop was speaking the words her faith requires of her. The Old Testament Book of Leviticus states it with exquisite moral clarity. Treat the stranger among you as one of your own, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. You find the same basic concept all over the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious texts. My favorite take comes from the Book of Hebrews: Do not forget to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. These aren't mere suggestions, like some tip on a psychology app to make you feel better about your life. Many of us see it as a fundamental duty of our faith, inextricable from the commandment to love God and love your neighbor. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a statement criticizing the Trump administration's immigration policy, described the services the Church provides to the poor and the displaced as 'part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.' Trump's threat to forcefully draft state and local officials and who knows how many of us into service for his migrant roundups violates the constitutional right to religious freedom. If you're among those wondering what it will take to resurrect the Democratic brand, a message grounded in the notion of religious freedom has the right mix of ingredients for the current moment. It's a disciplined moral argument. It's a principled legal argument. It's precise, unlike the open-ended outrage of the 'resistance' during Trump's first term. It flips the script on the Republican Party's appeal to people of faith, some of whom were potential Democratic voters up until the last election. It feels more like courageous leadership than blind opposition, and it works from the local and state levels up. That's especially true here in Minnesota, where we have a robust movement of religious progressives. I like that it takes us back to the first things of the American narrative. Freedom of conscience was a fundamental question during the 17th century conflicts that brought the Pilgrims to New England. As well as the heroic Civil Rights Movement, which arose out of Black churches. The astonishing corruption, the lawlessness, the selling out of our nation's security, and all the other transgressions spinning out of the new administration, like scenes from a chainsaw movie, will all need to be addressed. But first the brand needs some wind in its sails. The Democrats sorely need a win, and the conservative Supreme Court loves a good religious freedom argument. The message is simple and emotionally resonant. Right out of the gate, Trump, his administration and his party have put themselves on the wrong side of God and the wrong side of America. A similar argument is already before the Texas Supreme Court, where the state is trying to shut down a religious charity that provides services for migrants in El Paso. Scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims that the Catholic-run shelter, Annunciation House, isn't religious enough in his mind to warrant protection from the state's coercive immigration laws. David French, a conservative who has litigated religious freedom issues and now writes about them for the The New York Times, argues that Annunciation House has a strong case, which is widely acknowledged even among conservative legal scholars. During her now forgotten victorious debate performance against Trump, Kamala Harris showed how easy it is to goad Trump into rage and distraction. And unlike many who can find solace in prayer, Trump knows no divinity other than his own ego.
Chicago Tribune
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Annie Abbott: Multilingualism not a threat. It belongs in our country.
When Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke to President Donald Trump and the congregation on the day after his inauguration, she asked him 'to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.' For many of those people, that fear is pronounced miedo, and speaking Spanish (or any language other than English) is now part of what makes them feel like targets. The recent 'Day Without Immigrants,' launched as protests in Chicago and cities across the country, was the national response to attacks on Spanish-speaking immigrants especially. Now reports indicate Trump will sign an executive order declaring English the official language of the U.S. and rescinding requirements that programs that receive federal funds provide language assistance for non-English speakers. In the current fearmongering against immigrants, language is used as a proxy for who belongs in the United States — or who does not. This misunderstanding of the vital role of multilingualism in our communities, our economy and our government helps drive the anti-immigrant attitude and actions that will only weaken our country. One week after Trump took office for the second time, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) spoke to this language connection in a message to its members: 'In light of the recent wave of Executive Orders issued by the new Trump administration, it is more important than ever to reaffirm the critical role that world language educators serve in our multilingual communities, here and abroad. … As the world becomes more interdependent, the demand for multilingual and culturally competent individuals will only grow.' As a language educator with more than 30 years experience teaching Spanish at the university level, I know, and research shows, that embracing all languages enriches schools, communities and businesses. Yet deeply ingrained in U.S. culture is the problematic notion that being a monolingual English speaker should be the norm. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of people (78.3%) in the U.S. speak English only, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, a majority of those who speak languages other than English are bilingual and speak English 'very well.' And a full 17% of immigrants in the U.S. speak English only. Clearly, English is in no danger in this country from the presence of people who also speak many other languages. A recent international survey of more than 20 countries, conducted by the Pew Research Center, asked what makes a person truly belong to a country. The top response (91%) was 'being able to speak their country's most common language.' The response of participants from the U.S. was lower (78%) but still high. Trump — who is monolingual — has espoused throughout his career that speaking English equals belonging. In a 2015 Republican presidential primary debate, he said, 'This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.' Nine years later, at a 2024 rally in Phoenix, he went further, claiming that non-English-speaking immigrants push out those who truly belong: 'There are a lot of languages that we don't have here. … And they're sitting down in a school, taking a student's place that might be a hardworking good citizen, the child of citizens. And they're taking their place.' That is not how public schools work, obviously; one student's presence does not shove out another. School is precisely where immigrant youths need to be to learn English. In the fall of 2021, 10.6% of public school students in the United States were English learners, equaling 5.3 million students. The deeper implication resonating from this administration is clear: If you do not speak English, even if you are learning it, you cannot be a 'good citizen.' You do not belong. It is not surprising, then, that the Spanish version of the White House's website and social media accounts disappeared the day Trump took office. Even if it is true that a Spanish version is in the works, that stands in stark contrast to the preparedness with which this administration launched its priorities in the first hours and days with a spray of prewritten executive orders and policy plans. The bigger problem is that these beliefs about languages translate into action. Research shows that negative attitudes about the way people speak English, let alone another language, results in bias and discrimination, '(exacerbating) existing prejudices towards minority communities.' Studies have found discriminatory hiring practices against job candidates with 'nonstandard' accents and bias in artificial intelligence against nonnative English writers. Even worse, this conflation of language and belonging is tied to deportation efforts. This is not new. During Trump's first presidency, a Manhattan lawyer was recorded threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on workers who spoke Spanish, and two women in Montana were detained by a Border Patrol agent for speaking Spanish. The official mechanisms for raids, detention and deportation have recently ramped up even more. At the top of the ICE website, in red, a button encourages people to 'Report Crime' and provides a phone number for reporting 'suspicious activity.' The problem is that speaking Spanish has so thoroughly been cast as a 'suspicious activity' that fears swirl around claims that U.S. citizens are detained for speaking it in public. To be sure, speaking English in the U.S. benefits immigrants. That is why around 900,000 adults in the U.S. are enrolled in English classes. But if learning a language were quick and easy, far fewer Americans would be monolingual themselves. On the first day of this new semester at my university, and the second day of Trump's administration, a student emailed me to say she would miss class while she and her family huddled in Chicago where a massive federal deportation operation was announced. That same day, a former student reached out to me and wrote that 'speaking Spanish is a core part of my career as a humanitarian immigration attorney in Chicago — where 90% of my clients speak exclusively Spanish.' Speaking Spanish and other languages in the U.S. must be a point of orgullo — pride — not a cause of terror. Annie Abbott is an associate teaching professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.
USA Today
09-02-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump's cruelty is his instinct. We have to protect birthright citizenship
At a post-inaugural prayer service Jan. 21, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde asked President Donald Trump to have mercy. She needn't have bothered. It's like asking icicles not to be cold. Cruelty is as instinctive to him as breathing. Already, Trump has given the lie to his claim that he is going after people because they 'broke the law' and 'committed criminal acts.' And how does that apply to those with birthright citizenship, Mr. Trump? What sinister criminal acts did these people commit to force someone to give birth to them on American soil? More:Mariann Budde, bishop who challenged Trump, was shaped by 'humble' North Jersey roots No, this isn't about making America safer, and it never was. This is about hunting down, striking terror and destroying the life of people who simply did not have the good fortune to be born to American parents. It's about feeding the politics of grievance, justifying the hatred and anger of those who blame all their problems on the most powerless and voiceless, because nothing he does will actually address those problems or make them better. Cruelty is all Trump has. Beware, those of you who cheer on his viciousness: By dehumanizing and treating people like prey, you are destroying your own humanity and ridding the world of the mercy you, too, may one day depend on. Laura Morowitz Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Verona
