Hyattsville, Maryland
In the coronary heart of deep-red Appalachia, a high Catholic official will soon be delivering providers with a heavy Spanish accent. But Father Evelio Menjívar Ayala appears unfazed by his new job – or the politics swirling round it.
West Virginia is “almost heaven,” Menjívar informed NCS. “But there are many challenges that must be worked on so that the Kingdom of God becomes present there.”
Menjívar, who arrived undocumented in the United States in 1990, is the Bishop-designate of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers all of West Virginia – a state President Donald Trump received in three consecutive presidential elections.
His appointment follows Leo’s strong rebuke of “the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States.” But Menjívar dismisses the concept that his appointment is a deliberate provocation for the US president.
“I don’t think the pope is sending a message to Trump,” mentioned Menjívar. “I believe the message he is sending is precisely that immigrants are ready to go wherever we are sent and to carry out work not only with our own people, but that we are ready to do work wherever it may be. There are no limits for us as immigrants.”
Menjivar will be put in in West Virginia this summer time. He spoke with NCS at the Pastoral Center at the Archdiocese of Washington in Hyattsville, Maryland, the place he’s served as an auxiliary bishop since 2023.
Salvadoran-born West Virginia bishop says appointment timing is “just a coincidence” amid Trump–Pope Leo feud
More than a third of Hyattsville residents are Hispanic or Latino – a far cry from Menjívar’s new diocese in West Virginia, the place there are few Catholics and Hispanics – one thing Menjívar acknowledges as a “challenge.” But he believes his appointment might assist break down limitations.
“I believe the pope understands very well and also understands from his own experience how people open up to a foreigner when you open your heart to them,” Menjívar mentioned, pointing to Pope Leo’s expertise as a Chicago-born missionary in Peru.
“The individuals of Peru love the pope as a result of he gave himself completely to them. And that’s what I need to do with the individuals of West Virginia.
Menjívar arrived undocumented in the United States at age 18, fleeing a bloody civil conflict in El Salvador, stowed away in a automobile to keep away from detection at the border. But he’s now been an American citizen for over twenty years.
As a former undocumented immigrant, the bishop informed NCS that he’s felt nice ache seeing how households have been separated underneath the immigration insurance policies of Trump’s second time period.
“The mere fact of crossing the border undocumented should not define your entire history as an immigrant,” Menjívar mentioned. “The immigrant cannot be defined by just one part of that journey and that experience.”
Yet Menjívar’s former immigration standing has attracted loads of headlines, particularly given West Virginia’s conservative politics. Menjívar has spoken out in opposition to mass deportations, and most protection of his appointment has juxtaposed his ascension to the bishopric with each his immigration story and the public argument between Trump and Pope Leo.
Some inside the diocese have puzzled aloud whether or not the appointment was a riposte to Trump, together with Kathleen M. Jacobs, a author in West Virginia and a self-described “cradle Catholic.”
“Was the point to keep the spotlight on the faithful,” she wrote in a column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, “or was it to keep the spotlight on the politics that have infiltrated every fiber of our country?”
“I was unsettled by it,” Jacobs informed NCS later, “because I wondered why the appointment came from outside the diocese.”
Nonetheless, she appears to be like ahead to seeing what sort of bishop Menjívar will be.
“My hope is that this new bishop is a fast learner,” Jacobs mentioned. “And that he will immerse himself in West Virginia’s history, its struggles, and most importantly, its people.”
Timothy Bishop, the diocesan spokesperson, emphasised that Menjívar’s appointment had nothing to do with Trump, however somewhat the bishop-designate’s pastoral qualities.
“He reaches out to those in the margins,” Bishop mentioned. “He supports the needs of the less fortunate… Those are things West Virginia needs.”
“You know, sometimes in our state,” Bishop added, “we have a tendency to think that the problems that West Virginia faces are solely West Virginia problems, and they’re not. The problems that West Virginia faces exist throughout the country.”
Menjívar informed NCS that whereas he believes clergymen shouldn’t marketing campaign for a candidate or politician, he thinks they will be a information for his or her trustworthy.
“Politics is inevitable in life,” he mentioned. “Political matters have to do with the reality in which people live. What we cannot do is engage in partisan politics. The Church has the opportunity to bring light to the problems, to people’s lives. You cannot preach the gospel in a vacuum.”
Menjívar added that he received’t hesitate to categorical his opinion if he feels that US immigration insurance policies undermine human dignity.
“I will continue raising my voice for humane treatment of immigrants because that is part of my own story,” Menjívar mentioned. “For me, talking about these things is personal; it is the story of my people. I will keep raising my voice without forgetting the realities in which I will continue exercising my ministry.”
Though he’s been an American for twenty years, El Salvador isn’t removed from Menjívar’s ideas. In the hallways of the Pastoral Center, he’s hung a picture of Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop who was murdered whereas celebrating mass in 1980, round the of the nation’s lengthy civil conflict.
Menjívar acknowledges that right-wing President Nayib Bukele’s hardline rule in El Salvador – which has seen thousands of individuals detained – has introduced down crime ranges from document highs in his native nation.