Six prominent clergy members – including a Catholic cardinal, black and Hispanic Protestant leaders and a rabbi – will pray at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The inaugural committee told The Post on Wednesday that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Rev. Franklin Graham, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez and Pastor Paula White will all give readings at the ceremony.
The choice of clergy members to speak at previous inaugurations has drawn criticism, including Barack Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren in 2008 because of Warren’s anti-gay-marriage stance. Trump’s inaugural committee chose some clergy members, including Jackson and White, who were associated with Trump during his campaign, as well as others like Rodriguez, who spoke out against Trump’s views on immigration and other issues of importance to his Hispanic Christian community.
None of the six clergy members tapped for the Trump inauguration could be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham who now runs the association named for his father and the charity Samaritan’s Purse, defended Trump throughout his campaign against charges that the businessman went against Christian values. When many Republicans were expressing disgust in October over the release of a tape showing Trump speaking crudely about women on the set of Access Hollywood, Graham wrote on Facebook, “The crude comments made by Donald J. Trump more than 11 years ago cannot be defended. But the godless progressive agenda of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton likewise cannot be defended. . . . The most important issue of this election is the Supreme Court.”
Jackson, pastor at Great Faith Ministries International Church in Detroit, hosted Trump for a visit to his church in September. And White, who runs a major ministry based in Florida, helped orchestrate Trump’s meeting with hundreds of evangelical leaders in June and has been called one of his top spiritual advisers. She is the only woman among the six people who will pray at the inauguration.
Rodriguez, on the other hand, debated whether to even show a video message that Trump recorded in May for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which he runs. “I’m actually very opposed to his rhetoric on most issues,” Rodriguez said about Trump at the time. “At the top of the list, his rhetoric on immigrants, on immigration, is unacceptable.”
Dolan, too, has criticized Trump’s stance on immigration. As the archbishop of New York, he is the most prominent Catholic official in the United States.
And Hier, the founder of the Los Angeles-based human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, strongly denounced Trump when the candidate first floated the idea of temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the United States.
The music at Trump’s inauguration will also have a religious flavor: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, known for its patriotic music at several previous inaugurations and other national events, will sing in the ceremony.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Julie Zauzmer
