Trump, Vance to attend DC interfaith service

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are attending an interfaith service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday morning. 

The “Interfaith Service of Prayer for the Nation” comes just 12 days after the National Cathedral hosted the funeral for former President Jimmy Carter on Jan. 9, an event that President Trump had attended while still president-elect.

Kevin Eckstrom, a spokesman for the cathedral, said the National Cathedral is ready for the quick turnaround. 

“This is the second leg of the marathon,” Eckstrom said. “But actually having just done the funeral has positioned us to do another event with thousands of people, again, fairly easily.”  

The Cathedral, in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Northwest D.C., is a Protestant Episcopal congregation but has opened up its prayer service to leaders from many different faiths and religions.

Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, LDS and Sikh leaders will attend and offer their own prayers, in addition to members of other Christian groups, during what Eckstrom described as an “interfaith and ecumenical,” event.

“This is what the Cathedral is built to do,” Eckstrom said. “It’s a place where the nation can come together.”

Road closures around the secure perimeter were in place very early Tuesday morning.

The prayer service begins at 11 a.m. and is not open to the public because of security concerns and the amount of dignitaries scheduled to attend. 

It will be livestreamed here for those who want to watch.

History of the Inauguration Day services:

The National Cathedral has hosted a prayer service during Inauguration Day as far back as 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt first entered the White House. The tradition was paused for a few decades, however, until Ronald Reagan’s second term in 1985, when the president attended the church’s first interfaith ceremony. 

In 1993 and 1997, President Bill Clinton moved the interfaith service to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Downtown D.C. 

Then, in 2001, President George W. Bush attended the interfaith service back at the National Cathedral where it has become a day after Inauguration Day tradition. 

The most recent inaugural service before Trump’s second presidency was conducted virtually in Jan. 21, 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with members of the Biden administration tuning in from the White House. 

Other Inauguration Day prayer services:

President Trump had also attended another prayer service this week, when he visited St. John’s Episcopal Church on H Street.

Unlike Washington National Cathedral’s Tuesday event, the service at St. John’s Church is private and out of view from cameras. 

Just across the street from Lafayette Park and the White House, St. John’s has been known as the “Church of The Presidents.” Every president since James Madison, who had been in office when the church was completed in 1816, has attended at least one service at St. John’s Church. 

It’s become a tradition for the incoming president to attend a service at the church before meeting with the outgoing president at the White House, which is what Presidents Trump and Biden did Monday morning.

Presidents and the Bible:

Monday featured a moment that had onlookers talking about the 47th president and the role of the bible in Inauguration ceremonies.

Each president has an opportunity to select which bible they will use to take the oath of office.

President Trump decided to use the same two bibles he did for his first term — one from his mother and the Lincoln bible.

Unlike at his first ceremony, onlookers noticed that he did not place his hand on the bibles as he took the oath of office.

It is unclear why the president decided not to do that, but he isn’t legally required to do so.

Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution states that “all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”