Washington National Cathedral

Mariann Edgar Budde 11-30-2023
The photo shows a man replacing stained glass windows at the Washington National Cathedral, the new windows have protest art on them.

THE FORMER WINDOWS depicted Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson, Confederate generals who owned slaves, betrayed their country, and fought a war to create a new country intending to preserve and expand the enslavement of Black people across the Americas. Those windows were removed and are on loan to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They represented a discredited yet potent historical lie perpetuated for generations and with lasting impact known as the “Lost Cause.” In the years after the Civil War, when Black Americans and others rose up in self-determination, monuments and windows like ours were conceived, paid for, and installed all over the United States. They became, and remain, a rallying cause for white supremacist movements in our day — movements that are growing.

Image via RNS/Washington National Cathedral

But the officials said their decision-making process concerning the windows sped up after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., last month, when neo-Nazis clashed with counterprotesters. But they also acknowledged that the windows’ removal is not sufficient for addressing racial injustice.

Gary Hall 1-18-2017

Image via RNS/Francisco Daum via Creative Commons

Washington National Cathedral was founded in 1907 and envisioned as a “Westminster Abbey for America,” which, in part, is why it finds itself at the center of controversy about its role in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s impending inauguration.

For more than a century, the cathedral has tried to stand in two worlds at once, attempting to be both a practicing Christian church and a gathering place for American civic expression. As the cathedral’s former dean, I believe that fidelity to the former role now requires rejecting the latter.

Image via RNS/Election Day Communion 2016

The idea for an Election Day church service came to the pastor as he was pouring juice into little plastic cups.

Mark Schloneger was preparing for Communion that day in 2008, in the kitchen of Waynesboro Mennonite Church in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The phone rang. It was a robocall from Sarah Palin, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee that year. She was imploring Christians to go to the polls, vote for her party, and take back the country.

Image via RNS/Danielle Thomas/Washington National Cathedral

After quietly removing panes bearing the Confederate flag from its stained-glass windows, leaders of the Washington National Cathedral are now wondering what to do about remaining images of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

"How can you justify having those windows in a house of God?" challenged Riley Temple, a former board member of the Washington National Cathedral's foundation.

Anna Hall 12-18-2013
Lauren Markoe/RNS

Carole King sings a hymn at the National Vigil for Victims of Gun Violence. Lauren Markoe/RNS

To mark the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, which left 20 students and six adults dead, a vigil for victims of gun violence was held at Washington National Cathedral last week.

The vigil, sponsored in part by the Newtown Foundation, was a service to remember and honor the more than 30,000 people who lose their lives to gun violence each year. It provided a space for the community to come together in prayers for hope, peace, and love.

After three minutes of silence during the calling bells, a trio of faith leaders, including a rabbi, a Sikh leader, and a Christian minister, offered up calls to prayer. At his turn to speak, Dr. Rajwant Singh affirmed that “whichever way we reach out to God, we can become separated from each other by ignorance, hatred, and violence.” “Each heart is God’s heart, and each body is God’s temple,” Singh continued, “so if you want to honor God, don’t take anyone’s life, or break anyone’s heart.”

Michael Winter 7-30-2013
Photo courtesy Washington National Cathedral.

The Bethlehem Chapel and Organwere defaced with green paint. Photo courtesy Washington National Cathedral.

Washington police arrested a 58-year-old woman after two chapels in the Washington National Cathedral were defaced with green paint Monday afternoon.

The arrest follows similar vandalism Friday to the Lincoln Memorial and a statue near the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall. Police are testing paint samples to determine whether the three incidents are connected.

Police charged Tian Jiamel, who has no permanent address, with one count of defacing property.

U.S. Park Police investigators questioned her Monday night. Two police officials told The Washington Post that federal police had been seeking an Asian female who was possibly homeless.

(Image of the Washington National Cathedral by Mesut Dogan/Shutterstock.)

(Image of the Washington National Cathedral by Mesut Dogan/Shutterstock.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It took 83 years to build the iconic Washington National Cathedral, but a rare East Coast earthquake last summer took just seconds to send carved stone finials tumbling from the heavens to the ground below.

Now, six months after the 5.8-magnitude quake, the cathedral is facing repair costs of at least $20 million, and a reconstruction timeline that could stretch out a decade or more.

The bill to fix the iconic church is now at least $5 million more than original estimates, said church officials, who are still working to stabilize the building, repair its intricate stonework and raise money to continue the restoration.

So far, donations for repairs have reached $2 million, or 10 percent of the predicted cost.