WASHINGTON (RNS) — A prestigious group of mourners, including a slate of current, former and future presidents and vice presidents, assembled in the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday (Jan. 9) for the state funeral of President Jimmy Carter, celebrating the life and legacy of the peanut farmer-turned-politician from Plains, Georgia.
Carter’s casket, which had been lying in state at the U.S. Capitol since Tuesday evening, was welcomed at the door of the snow-covered cathedral by Episcopal prelates including the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington.
“Let us also pray for all who mourn that they may cast their care on God and know the consolation of his love,” Budde prayed from the Book of Common Prayer, her robes billowing in a frigid wind.
A short time later, President Joe Biden offered his eulogy for Carter. The president noted that when Carter ran for national office in 1976, then-Sen. Biden was among the first to endorse his candidacy. Biden said he was drawn to what he called Carter’s “most enduring attribute: character, character, character.”
Biden, like many who spoke at the state funeral, highlighted the importance of Carter’s faith, saying it overlapped with broadly held American ideals, including that “we all are created equal in the image of God.”
“Jimmy held a deep Christian faith in God … faith as a substance of things hoped for and evidence of the things not seen,” Bide …