Remember Episcopal Bishop Marian Edgar Budde? On January 21, as presiding bishop for the National Cathedral’s “Service of Prayer for the Nation,” Budde decided to use a supposedly ecumenical and unifying prayer event to browbeat President Donald Trump and make her case for illegal immigrants and the LGBTQ-all-the-letters tribe. 

Let’s revisit some of that speech for context.

And the people… the people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat-packing plants. Who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors, they are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, madara, and temples. 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 fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.

Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. 

May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being. To speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. The good of all people in this nation and the world.

Amen.

We have not heard from Bishop Budde of late, but her denomination has let it be known that their vestments are in a wad. Why, you might ask? Because Trump has declared that white South African farmers, who are being murdered, persecuted, and having their lands confiscated, can now be resettled into the United States as refugees.

WATCH: 

President Trump on giving refugee status to South Africans: “It’s a genocide. White Farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated. And the media doesn’t even talk about it. If it were the other way around, that would be the only story they talk about.” pic.twitter.com/YMP2QhYgzt

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 12, 2025

The Episcopal Church, after decades of shifting stances on the cause of life, the ordination of women, and the embrace of the LGBTQ+ and transgender agenda, now has a moral line—and Trump has crossed it. Because of this move by the Trump administration to welcome 49 white South African families to America as refugees, the Episcopal Church has chosen to shutter its 40-year-long Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM). It seems that white South Africans do not fit the definition of those needing help fleeing “persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.” 

So much for mercy to the stranger. For the Episcopalians, white refugees are the wrong cause, the wrong race, and definitely welcomed by the wrong administration.

In a striking move that ends a nearly four-decades-old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on Monday (May 12) that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Donald Trump’s administration.

In a letter sent to members of the church, the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe — the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church — said that two weeks ago the government “informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.”

“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe wrote. “Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”

Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain. Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.

The term “previously bipartisan” is laughable. Is this not a bipartisan move to resettle white South Africans? According to the Rt. Rev. Rowe, because they haven’t spent years in refugee camps and “dangerous conditions,” they are getting preferential treatment.

The Episcopal Church’s refugee program was getting over $50 Million per year under Biden, and they claim to have resettled 6,533 people from 48 different countries in the U.S. during 2024 alone.

Being asked to resettle 50 white people from South Africa is too much though… pic.twitter.com/ts11DPTLPa

— Parker Thayer (@ParkerThayer) May 12, 2025

Are some of these “brave people” the Rt. Rev. is in a twist about like this Afghan national who was resettled into our country, then arrested last October for plotting a terrorist attack?

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested Monday on federal charges over an alleged plot to carry out the attack after conspiring with the terrorist organization and obtaining firearms and ammunition.

Sources told NBC that Tawhedi, who lives in Oklahoma City, had worked as a security guard in his home country for the CIA, before entering the U.S. in September 2021—shortly after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Inquiring minds want to know. Perhaps the fact that people are now actually being vetted, as opposed to being allowed to overrun the country under any excuse and then commit crimes and murder American citizens, is a true sign of Christian compassion. Christian compassion doesn’t mean you cause deliberate suffering to one group of people in order to supposedly aid another. But the Rt. Rev. not only strongly disagrees, but insists on telling you that Christian compassion should not extend to white South Africans. No way, no how that they can be deemed poor, vulnerable, or marginalized because they are not black or brown. Therefore, they need not apply through EMM.

As Christians, we must be guided not by political vagaries, but by the sure and certain knowledge that the kingdom of God is revealed to us in the struggles of those on the margins. Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command. Right now, what that means is ending our participation in the federal government’s refugee resettlement program and investing our resources in serving migrants in other ways.

Hypocrisy much? At least we see clearly what the Episcopalian vetting process actually entailed: a deeper tan and a sob story that paints the white man as the oppressor. Maybe their contracts need to be rescinded early, as they are not really serving “migrants,” but themselves and their bottom line.