In the heart of deep-red Appalachia, a top Catholic official will soon be delivering services with a heavy Spanish accent. But Father Evelio Menjívar Ayala seems unfazed by his new job – or the politics swirling around it.
West Virginia is “almost heaven,” Menjívar told CNN. “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 won 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 idea that his appointment is a deliberate provocation for the US president.
“I don’t think the pope is sending a message to Trump,” said 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 installed in West Virginia this summer. He spoke with CNN at the Pastoral Center at the Archdiocese of Washington in Hyattsville, Maryland, where he’s served as an auxiliary bishop since 2023.
M ore than a third of Hyattsville residents are Hispanic or Latino – a far cry from Menjívar’s new diocese in West Virginia, where there are few Catholics and Hispanics – something Menjívar acknowledges as a “challenge.” But he believes his appointment could help break down barriers.
“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 said, pointing to Pope Leo’s experience as a Chicago-born missionary in Peru.
“The people of Peru love the pope because he gave himself totally to them. And that is what I want to do with the people of West Virginia.
Menjívar arrived undocumented in the United States at age 18, fleeing a bloody civil war in El Salvador, stowed away in a car to avoid detection at the border. But he’s now been an American citizen for over two decades.
As a former undocumented immigrant, the bishop told CNN that he’s felt great pain seeing how families have been separated under the immigration policies of Trump’s second term.
“The mere fact of crossing the border undocumented should not define your entire history as an immigrant,” Menjívar said. “The immigrant cannot be defined by just one part of that journey and that experience.”
Yet Menjívar’s former immigration status has attracted plenty of headlines, especially given West Virginia’s conservative politics. Menjívar has spoken out against mass deportations, and most coverage of his appointment has juxtaposed his ascension to the bishopric with both his immigration story and the public argument between Trump and Pope Leo.
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Some within the diocese have wondered aloud whether the appointment was a riposte to Trump, including Kathleen M. Jacobs, a writer 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 told CNN later, “because I wondered why the appointment came from outside the diocese.”
Nonetheless, she looks forward to seeing what kind of bishop Menjívar will be.
“My hope is that this new bishop is a fast learner,” Jacobs said. “And that he will immerse himself in West Virginia’s history, its struggles, and most importantly, its people.”
Timothy Bishop, the diocesan spokesperson, emphasized that Menjívar’s appointment had nothing to do with Trump, but rather the bishop-designate’s pastoral qualities.
“He reaches out to those in the margins,” Bishop said. “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 told CNN that while he believes priests shouldn’t campaign for a candidate or politician, he thinks they can be a guide for their faithful.
“Politics is inevitable in life,” he said. “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 won’t hesitate to express his opinion if he feels that US immigration policies undermine human dignity.
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“I will continue raising my voice for humane treatment of immigrants because that is part of my own story,” Menjívar said. “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 two decades, El Salvador isn’t far from Menjívar’s thoughts. In the hallways of the Pastoral Center, he’s hung an image of Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop who was murdered while celebrating mass in 1980, around the of the country’s long civil war.
Menjívar acknowledges that right-wing President Nayib Bukele’s hardline rule in El Salvador – which has seen thousands of people detained - has brought down crime levels from record highs in his native country.
