Woe betide Episcopal Bishop Mariann E. Budde who dared to ask President Trump to exercise mercy.

From her perch in the historic Canterbury Pulpit at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, she spoke simple truth to simpleton power: “Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

Bishop Budde apparently did not read the memo that Trump is now above the law. Above criticism. And above all, not to be challenged by a female bishop.

We need more Bishop Buddes in the next four years.

The current Republican Party is not up to the task. The GOP that once cherished things like limited government, personal responsibility and freedom of religious expression has disgraced itself by becoming a tool of President Trump’s partisan vengeance. The national Democratic Party is not much better, having lost its voice by engaging too much in identity politics and small ball reform.

We are nonetheless encouraged by the strength and resolve exhibited by Bishop Budde. She is a public religious authority who felt duty-bound to speak on her religious principles. Who are the other possible Bishop Buddes? As we look around, it’s hard to be optimistic.

Captains of business appear to be biting their collective tongues, lest they suffer some drive-by insult from Trump that causes their stock price to drop. Democratic governors are largely mum, hoping also to avoid punitive blowback from Trump. Union leaders? Nope. Other religious leaders? Pretty much silent. The lack of any upswell in public support from equally powerful public figures to stand with Bishop Budde does not bode well for the next four years.

An area of optimism emerges from the federal judges — appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents — who are refusing to play along with Trump’s attempted whitewashing of the mob’s attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Take the case of Nicholas DeCarlo and Nichols Ochs, founders of the Hawaii chapter of the Proud Boys, who went to the U.S. Capitol that January day to throw smoke bombs at police officers and obstruct the transfer of power. They engaged in this criminal conduct because they felt the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump.

In the subsequent criminal prosecution, however, both admitted their guilt, got sentenced to prison and waived their right of appeal — all with full advice of their legal counsel.

These two scoundrels are now free thanks to the sweeping pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters under a Presidential Proclamation issued by Trump on Monday.

As required by the Proclamation, federal prosecutors have been filing motions to dismiss charges against rioters. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell, the federal judge in charge of the case against DeCarlo and Ochs, did not suffer in silence. He pushed back against the flagrant rewriting of history in Trump’s Jan. 20 Proclamation.

On its face, the Proclamation contains two preposterous lies: (1) that the pardons are necessary to “end a national injustice” and (2) that the pardons will “begin a process of national reconciliation.”

But as Howell reminded us on Wednesday, there was no “national injustice.” There was, instead, the necessary prosecution of sore losers who tried to use violence to obstruct the transfer of power to the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden.

As the judge also reminded us, no “process of national reconciliation” can begin when “poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity.”

Howell was then specific about the consequences. “That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.”

We need courageous judges like Howell not to yield to intimidation and falsehoods in the next four years.

The rule of law is the bedrock on which this nation’s constitutional republic sits. For now.

— The Republican (Springfield, Mass)