Two months after his victory in the American presidential election, Donald Trump is preparing to formally take office on Monday January 20. As at every inauguration across the Atlantic, the president-elect will take an oath on the Bible, pledging to protect and respect the Constitution of the United States. The ceremony will exceptionally take place inside the Capitol in Washington DC, due to the cold prevailing in the American capital.
And like every four years, several religious leaders will speak at this event, for a reading, to bless or to pray for the 47th President of the United States. On the Catholic side, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan will deliver the opening prayer. Already present in 2017, Cardinal Dolan is not known to be close to Donald Trump. “The president was kind enough to ask me to offer the opening prayer,” the archbishop declared to a New York television channel in early January. He had also asked me in 2016 to do (the previous one), so (when) he asked me this time, I said, “Well, I didn’t do it eight years ago ; I hope it works this time.”
As many Catholics as evangelicals
A second Catholic priest, Father Frank Mann, retired from the diocese of Brooklyn and close to Donald Trump, will be one of the four religious people to pronounce the blessing which will close the inauguration. The two men have become friends since the priest began taking care of the tomb of the second’s parents, before the president-elect’s first term. From the British Catholic weekly The TabletFather Frank Mann spoke “an indescribable honor to be invited to pronounce the closing blessing.”
Notable fact and unlike the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017, on January 20 there will be as many Catholics as evangelical Protestants, over-represented eight years ago. Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham, son of famous preacher Billy Graham and longtime supporter of the president-elect, will also deliver a prayer. A second pastor, Lorenzo Sewell, head of the interdenominational 180 Church based in Detroit, Michigan, will also deliver the final blessing.
Presence of an imam
Michigan State, a swing state won by the Republican candidate in November, will be well represented among the religious present at the inauguration ceremony. Husham Al-Husainy, an imam in charge of an Islamic education center in Dearborn, Michigan, will also bless the new president of the United States. Disappointed by Joe Biden’s inaction in the war waged by Israel in Gaza, this preacher supported Donald Trump during the presidential election and thus helped him to swing part of the significant Muslim electorate in this state. Finally, Rabbi Ari Berman, president of an Orthodox Jewish school in New York, will recite the closing blessing alongside him. During the campaign, the latter did not support Donald Trump.
During the ceremony, the latter will take the oath with his right hand placed on two Bibles: the Lincoln Bible, used by the assassinated president in 1865 and used three times for the inaugurations of Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013 and Donald Trump in 2017. second Bible was given to the president-elect by his mother, a Presbyterian Christian, when he was a child.