Episcopal Priest ‘A Force To Be Reckoned With’ After Trump Photo

WASHINGTON, DC — An Episcopal priest ejected from a plaza outside historic St. John’s Church by armored police hurling flash grenades and tear gas canisters at peaceful protesters never expected to inspire the #ForceToBeReckonedWith hashtag.

But neither did the Rev. Gini Gerbasi expect to be in the middle of the scene that unfolded Monday near the St. John's Church-Lafayette. Hundreds of people were peacefully demonstrating, venting their pain over racial inequality, police brutality and George Floyd's death, yet causing no harm — except to the optics of a presidential photo-op.

Gerbasi, the rector at a nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church in Georgetown, was among about 20 clergy from various denominations and lay people who were handing out water and snacks to the demonstrators and, she wrote on Facebook, creating “a place of respite and peace.”

By 6 p.m. Monday, the patio outside the church was anything but that. National Guard military police stormed the protesters, who rushed the patio for eyewashes, water and paper towels. She turned to a seminary student, who also is a trauma nurse, in disbelief.

“I was coughing, her eyes were watering, and we were trying to help people as the police — in full riot gear — drove people toward us,” Gerbasi wrote on Facebook.

The seminary students left, but Gerbasi remained behind with organizers from the Black Lives Matter group to assist protesters.

“Suddenly, around 6:30, there was more tear gas, more concussion grenades, and I think I saw someone hit by a rubber bullet — he was grasping his stomach, and there was a mark on his shirt,” she wrote. “The police in their riot gear were literally walking onto the St. John's, Lafayette Square patio with these metal shields, pushing people off the patio and driving them back. People were running at us as the police advanced toward us from the other side of the patio.”

They were pushed farther and farther back by the concussion grenades. It wasn’t until she was safely back in her car around 7 and began receiving text messages that she understood the reason for the abrupt evacuation — so President Donald Trump could pose in front of the boarded-up church, which had been damaged in the unrest over the weekend.

"I literally COULD NOT believe it,” Gerbasi wrote, using all capital letters for emphasis. “WE WERE DRIVEN OFF OF THE PATIO AT ST. JOHN'S — a place of peace and respite and medical care throughout the day — SO THAT MAN COULD HAVE A PHOTO OPPORTUNITY IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH!!! PEOPLE WERE HURT SO THAT HE COULD POSE IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH WITH A BIBLE! HE WOULD HAVE HAD TO STEP OVER THE MEDICAL SUPPLIES WE LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE WE WERE BEING TEAR GASSED!!!”

She said Trump turned the holy space of the patio, where so many had received comfort that day, into a battleground for “a cheap political stunt.”

“I am DEEPLY OFFENDED on behalf of every protestor, every Christian, the people of St. John's, Lafayette Square, every decent person there, and the [Black Lives Matter] medics who stayed with just a single box of supplies and a backpack, even when I got too scared and had to leave.

“I am OK,” she wrote. “But I am now a force to be reckoned with.”

Trump’s use of the church for a photo-op was widely criticized by other members of the clergy.

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., speaking with CNN after the photo-op, told CNN she was “outraged” by Trump’s actions, noting that he did not pray when he came to the church, nor “did he acknowledge the agony of our country right now.”

“Let me be clear,” she said, “the president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings to Jesus.”

The Right Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, accused Trump of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.”

“This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us,” Curry said in a statement.

“We need our President, and all who hold office, to be moral leaders who help us to be a people and nation living these values. For the sake of George Floyd, for all who have wrongly suffered, and for the sake of us all, we need leaders to help us to be ‘one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.’”

On Tuesday, the president earned more sharp condemnation from religious leaders after he and first lady Melania Trump visited the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in northwest Washington.

“I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people, even those with whom we might disagree,” Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement after the visit.

Gregory noted Pope John Paul II would not have condoned Trump’s actions, including the aggressive clearing out of the area surrounding St. John’s Church.

“Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth," Gregory said. "He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.”

The visit to the shrine was another photo-op as the president signed an executive order on religious freedom. Officials at the shrines said in a statement it was an appropriate place for Trump to sign the executive order given that “St. John Paul II was a tireless advocate of religious liberty throughout his pontificate.”

“International religious freedom receives widespread bipartisan support, including unanimous passage of legislation in defense of persecuted Christians and religious minorities around the world,” it said. "The shrine welcomes all people to come and pray and learn about the legacy of St. John Paul II.”

Gregory’s statement lambasting the president was read aloud by demonstrators at the shrine.

Though they stirred fierce criticism among religious progressive, both appearances were efforts by the Trump campaign to shore up support from his conservative evangelical and Catholic religious base.

Some conservative Christians also took issue with Trump.

“The Bible is a book we should hold only with fear and trembling, given to us that in it we might find eternal life,” J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in a statement. “Our only agenda should be to advance God’s kingdom, proclaim his Gospel, or find rest for our souls.”

On his Christianity Today blog, Ed Stetzer wrote that Trump’s hoisting of the Bible was “simultaneously unhelpful to the current situation and at odds with the message of that Bible.”

The photo-op was “jarring and awkward” and “did not play well, even with many of the president’s supporters."

“America is burning,” he wrote. “We need a call to justice that sees each and every person as image bearers of their Creator—as the Bible teaches,” he wrote. “But we did not need that photo-op.”

On Tuesday, several pastors stood on the steps of St. John’s Church, where Trump stood a day earlier, and called for an end to police brutality.

“God is always on the side of the oppressed,” Twitter user Heidi Thompson tweeted. “Mr. President, I promise your hands are too small to box with God.”