The chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives rebuked lawmakers during her prayer Wednesday, petitioning God to “forgive them” for not uniting around President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
Rear Adm. Margaret Grun Kibben, an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, couched her condemnation in her prayer at the opening of the House session.
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“Almighty God,” she prayed, “as these lawmakers take their sides on this factional bill before them, we pray your mercy. Forgive them, all of them. For when called upon to respond to a once-in-a-century pandemic that has rocked our country, upended its economy and widened the chasm of partisan opinion. They have missed the opportunity to step above the fray and unite to attend to this national crisis.”
“In failing to address the acrimony and divisions which have prevailed in this room, the servants you have called to lead this country have contributed to the spread of an even more insidious contagion of bitterness and spite,” Kibben continued, chastising politicians for throwing off the “armor” of “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience … in favor of argument, disparaging words, and divisiveness.”
The chaplain ended her prayer by asking God to “rebuild” the House.
On Wednesday, lawmakers in the House approved the final version of Biden’s mammoth COVID-19 relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan Act. It passed along partisan lines by a 220 to 211 vote. One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), sided with the Republicans against the legislation.
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Biden, who signed the bill into law Thursday afternoon, praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) following the bill’s passage, describing her as “the finest and most capable speaker in the history of our nation,” adding that the package “is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance.”
The bill will provide $1,400 direct payments to individuals making up to $75,000 a year, $350 billion in federal aid to state and local governments, and sets aside $14 billion for vaccine distribution. It also calls for $130 billion to go to elementary, middle, and high schools to assist them in reopening classrooms for in-person learning.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned the massive package.
“This wasn’t a bill to finish off the pandemic, it was a multitrillion-dollar Trojan horse full of bad old liberal ideas,” he said. “President Biden’s own staff keep calling this legislation quote ‘the most progressive bill in American history.’ Hardly the commonsense bipartisanship that the president promised.”
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