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.
