Pope causes a stir: Illegal immigrant appointed bishop

The Appointment of a new bishop in the Republican stronghold of West Virginia has for international attention taken care of. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala immigrated to the USA illegally in 1990. As the Vatican announced on Friday, appointed Pope Leo XIV. the 55-year-old Menjivar-Ayala as bishop of the US Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. The Catholic press agency Kathpress reported on this on Saturday.

Menjivar-Ayala: Entered the USA illegally

As international media reported, Menjivar-Ayala entered the United States illegally across the Mexican border near Tijuana in 1990 as a 20-year-old refugee from El Salvador in the trunk of a car. The clergyman will now be bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers the entire US state of West Virginia. West Virginia is considered Republican stronghold. In the 2024 presidential election, 70 percent of the votes cast went there Donald Trump.

Bishop wants to serve people

The bishop-elect and his predecessor Mark Brennan announced the change at the top of the diocese in a press conference in Wheeling-Charleston on Friday. Menjivar-Ayala emphasized that his “only agenda” was to… to serve people and “to grow together in faith and loyalty to Christ.”

Before his transfer to West Virginia, Menjivar-Ayala served as an auxiliary bishop in the US capital Washington DC for three and a half years. At that time he was the first bishop from Central America in the USA. The Chalatenango province in El Salvador, from which Menjivar-Ayala comes, was the scene of bloody conflicts during the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s.