Overview
- Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, whose appointment was announced Friday, will lead the Catholic diocese of Wheeling–Charleston in West Virginia.
- Born in El Salvador, he entered the United States without papers in 1990 after fleeing war and poverty, and he has said he paid a bribe to leave a Mexican jail before crossing at Tijuana.
- The Vatican highlighted his pastoral record as an auxiliary bishop in Washington after his 2023 episcopal ordination.
- The selection follows Pope Léon XIV calling President Trump’s immigration approach “extremely disrespectful” and criticizing his threat to destroy Iran, which Trump answered by calling the pope “weak.”
- U.S. Catholic leaders have intensified criticism of harsh enforcement after federal immigration agents shot and killed protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, as courts have also slowed mass-expulsion plans by insisting on due process.