The Catholic Church has appointed an El Salvador-born advocate for immigrants, who has openly opposed the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown policies, as the next bishop for West Virginia. Pope Leo XIV announced on Friday the elevation of the Most Rev. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, currently an auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C., to lead the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which encompasses West Virginia, one of the United States’ least racially diverse states.
Bishop Menjivar-Ayala, 55, brings a deeply personal perspective to his new role. He fled El Salvador’s civil war as a teenager in the late 1980s, eventually crossing illegally into the United States in 1990. Within weeks, he secured humanitarian protection, later obtained a visa as a religious worker, and became a US citizen two decades ago.
His own journey fuels his strong empathy for those caught in immigration raids. Referring to federal law enforcement surges, such as one last year in Washington, he stated, “that could have been me.”
The Catholic Church has consistently championed the humane treatment of migrants and refugees globally. Bishop Menjivar-Ayala, alongside other US church leaders, has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, while also acknowledging a nation’s right to secure its borders and advocating for reconciliation.
Menjivar-Ayala did not mention immigration policies nor Trump is his speech Friday, instead focusing on his desire to be accepted by West Virginians and his willingness to listen to the community. A portion of his speech was in Spanish.
“I have much to learn, but my heart is ready and wide-open,” he said. “Above all, I want to listen to the poor. Those in the margins of the church and society. To workers, to the immigrants, because as Matthew 25 says, the way we treat the least is the way we treat Jesus.”
In the Washington archdiocese, which includes the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland, more than 40% of parishioners are Latino. In West Virginia — all of which is covered by the Wheeling-Charleston diocese — only 2.4% of the population is Latino and 92.6% of its 1.77 million residents identify as white, according to the U.S. Census.
Menjivar-Ayala replaces the Most Rev. Mark Brennan, 79, who has served as West Virginia’s bishop since 2019. Brennan had taken over after a scandal over a former bishop’s sexual harassment of adults and lavish spending of church money. In a shared news conference in Wheeling on Friday, Brennan reminded West Virginians that many in America come from somewhere else.
“But he loves all the people here. He’s not going to be bishop just for one group within the diocese. He’ll be bishop for all the people. I can assure you of that.”
The new bishop, who has spent his ministerial career in the nation’s capital and surrounding communities, will work in a less Catholic and more rural region, overseeing the diocese’s 61,000 Catholics and 92 parishes throughout West Virginia.
While acknowledging the beauty of West Virginia mountains and natural resources, he said many people in one of the nation’s poorest states “continue to endure hardship, marginalization and inequality.”
Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington praised Menjivar-Ayala’s advocacy for migrants during his tenure in the capital, saying in a statement that “his passion for justice and sensitive care for the Hispanic and immigrant communities of our Archdiocese have planted seeds of grace that will yield a harvest here for decades to come.”
In an article he wrote last year for the Catholic Standard, the official newspaper of the Washington archdiocese, Menjivar-Ayala spoke out against the treatment of immigrants by Trump’s administration.
“Each day this situation is getting worse and more ominous,” Menjivar-Ayala wrote. “For weeks now, the federal government has pursued a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration ‘enforcement.’”
Menjivar-Ayala, whose appointment comes a few weeks after the pope’s disagreement with Trump over the U.S. war against Iran, will be installed as bishop at a ceremony on July 2. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Menjivar-Ayala’s appointment.
Another Latin America-born priest was also named a U.S. bishop on Friday. The Rev. John Gomez will start his tenure in the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, on June 30. Gomez was born in Colombia, came to the United States on a student visa in 2002 and became a U.S. citizen in 2021, according to his current diocese in Tyler, Texas. In a statement, Bishop Gregory Kelly of Tyler praised his “commitment to Hispanic Ministry.”
Pope Leo’s first American bishop appointment, two weeks after his own election in May 2025, was a former refugee: Michael Pham, who was born in Vietnam and became bishop of San Diego, California.
The number of priestly ordinations in the United States has been declining for decades, making foreign-born clergy essential to many parishes nationwide.
