In December 2022, Msgr. Juan Esposito-Garcia returned home to his native Argentina, joining his parents as they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington had flown from Rome, where for the past five years he served as an official in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.
Then on Dec. 18, Msgr. Esposito, his parents and his two younger sisters gathered in the living room of the family’s home, and like millions of other people across that country, watched TV as Argentina won a thrilling World Cup soccer championship over France.
But special moments for their family didn’t end there, because the next day, Pope Francis announced that he was appointing Msgr. Esposito as a new auxiliary bishop of Washington, along with a fellow priest of the archdiocese, Father Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, the pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Landover Hills, Maryland.
“It was a few days of total excitement, to say the least,” Bishop Esposito said with a laugh, during an interview at the rectory of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, a few days before his Feb. 21 episcopal ordination.
Remembering those days with his family, from celebrating his parents’ wedding anniversary to watching what he said was a “heart-stopping” World Cup, to then being at home with them when the pope named him a bishop, he said it was “a beautiful time together.” He said it was also a time when he had quiet, prayerful moments at his family home to reflect on his new role in the Church.
With communications systems in Argentina overloaded on the day after the World Cup triumph, Bishop-elect Esposito was unable to speak via a live transmission at the Dec. 19 press briefing where Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory welcomed the two new auxiliary bishops, so his statement was read by the cardinal.
In that statement, Bishop-elect Esposito – who is believed to be the first native of Argentina named to be a bishop in the United States – quoted from a talk that Pope Francis gave to the U.S. bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral during his September 2015 papal visit to Washington.
Pope Francis told the bishops that as pope, he would be at their side “whenever [your) hand reaches out to do good or to show the love of Christ, to dry a tear or bring comfort to the lonely, to show the way to one who is lost or to console a broken heart, to help the fallen or to teach those thirsting for truth, to forgive or to offer a new start in God…”
Bishop-elect Esposito said the pope’s words “resonated deeply in my prayer during these last few days. They are a beautiful, profound and detailed description of the pastoral ministry of every bishop and, indeed, of every priest.”
He added that those words of Pope Francis “describe a life and ministry consecrated (and) dedicated entirely to serve others: to serve the people of God and in so doing, to serve Christ and His Church.”
The bishop-elect in his first statement then thanked the Holy Father and Cardinal Gregory “for this new opportunity to continue to serve everyone in our beautiful Archdiocese of Washington.”
After a whirlwind two months, when he returned to Rome to complete his work at the Dicastery for Bishops, then packed up for his move back to Washington, Bishop Esposito was interviewed by the editors of the Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers of the archdiocese. He had only been back in the nation’s capital for about a week, and the day earlier, he picked up his parents at the airport after they had flown from Argentina to attend his ordination as a bishop.
His father, Juan Rafael Esposito, worked as an administrator at the Catholic University of Cuyo in San Luis Argentina, and his mother, Estela Garcia de Esposito, was a vice principal at a Catholic school. Both are now retired.
The new bishop said his parents “definitely have had an absolutely unique, irreplaceable role in shaping my faith.”
Describing their devout Catholic faith, he said, “My parents are very well educated, but at the same time, they showed us how to live the faith since we were very, very little… We always went to church, were involved in the parish, (in) different activities.”
Volunteering and giving to those in need were parts of the fabric of his family’s life, he said.
Asked about his expectations for his new ministry in the Church, Bishop Esposito said the title, auxiliary bishop, describes that role, “to be of assistance to the cardinal in carrying out his own mission and his own pastoral vision for the Church in the Archdiocese of Washington, for that portion of the holy people of God entrusted to his pastoral care.”
During the interview, Bishop Esposito reflected on how his different experiences as a priest of the archdiocese would help him in his new role as a bishop.
After his ordination to the priesthood in 2008, he served as a parochial vicar at three Maryland parishes – the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, St. Mark the Evangelist in Hyattsville, and at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda. He also was a pro tem parish administrator at Ascension Church in Bowie.
“Certainly in the different parishes that I was, you learned the value of being a pastor, being a shepherd, which I think is going to be very important moving forward, and you learn to listen to your parishioners, to listen to them, to their needs. As a pastor and as a priest, you are the one that needs to adjust and adapt to whatever the pastoral needs of that community are. So I think that has been a great school in that sense,” he said.
The new bishop said serving in the archdiocese’s Tribunal “was a wonderful experience.”
“I am a former civil lawyer, and I studied canon law at Catholic University, so I had the chance to put into practice some of my legal training, again, with the only goal of helping those who approach the Church with a specific need,” said Bishop Esposito, who earned a law degree at the Catholic University of Cuyo in San Luis, Argentina, and a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from The Catholic University of America in Washington.
He praised the “incredible team” at the Tribunal. When he left that work, they had made that outreach fully bilingual for English or Spanish-speaking Catholics. Describing that ministry, he said it was “wonderful work that we were able to do… just to be able to help, to assist, even to reach out to those who came to us, sometimes for healing, for reconciliation, coming because it was a vehicle for coming into full communion with the Catholic Church.”
Then-Father Esposito also served as an adjunct professor of canon law at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
“I love to teach. I come from a family of teachers,” said Bishop Esposito, who noted that his mother, both of his grandmothers and one of his sisters worked as teachers, “so I love to teach.”
Teaching canon law at Mount St. Mary’s “was a beautiful experience,” he said, adding “You learn different ways to share the faith and the teachings of the Catholic Church in this case, with seminary students, we also had some lay students as well. It was a very formative experience. It just helps you, using the tools you need, to teach, to articulate our beautiful faith.” He noted that the role of a bishop is “to teach, to govern, and to sanctify.”
Working in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops was akin to working in an archdiocesan secretariat, he said. “We carry out our work in the name of the Holy Father, just being part of that in a very small way, being able to contribute to the pastoral vision of the Holy Father, in this case, for the universal Church, that was an incredible experience, and a blessing.”
When asked what qualities he’s seen in Pope Francis as a bishop that he would like to emulate, Bishop Esposito said, “First of all, he’s a pastor. He’s a true shepherd. He has the heart of a pastor. He’s so clear in explaining the faith to us. But at the same time, he’s so clear in suggesting how we ought to live out that faith… The second thing I will take with me always is his closeness to people. He has this incredible ability to connect with people everywhere, of every background, with a sort of kindness and gentleness.”
He praised how Pope Francis is able to teach the faith in a “very concrete way that resonates in the heart of everyone.”
Before he was ordained as a priest, Bishop Esposito had an unforgettable experience, serving as a deacon at Pope Benedict XVI’s Mass at Nationals Park during the pontiff’s 2008 visit to Washington. In the opening procession, then-Deacon Esposito walked a few steps in front of the pope. The nearly 50,000 people attending the Mass at the stadium greeted Pope Benedict with loud applause, and he smiled and raised his arms, as if to embrace them.
In an interview before his ordination to the priesthood, Deacon Esposito said he was moved by seeing how during that Mass, Pope Benedict focused in prayer on the crucifix placed on the center of the altar, and he said he hoped to be able to celebrate Mass as a priest with that same concentration.
Reflecting on that experience, Bishop Esposito said “it was such an incredible blessing and a gift.” Pope Benedict’s Mass in Washington came just two months before the future bishop was ordained to the priesthood along with his fellow seminarian classmates. “Serving as a deacon for him at that absolutely beautiful Mass, to me altogether, it seemed like a spiritual retreat, like a preparation for ordination,” he said.
Asked about what he learned from the legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on Dec. 31, Bishop Esposito said, “He was an incredible teacher. One of the things I will say is, of the many things I have read, because I have read many of his works, one thing is his insistence of encountering the person of Jesus Christ, this is not about encountering just a message or certainly not (just) an ideology, our faith is about that personal encounter with Jesus Christ.”
Bishop Esposito’s coat of arms includes colors reflecting his native country, Argentina, and Italy, the land of his ancestors. His motto as a bishop, “Blessed are the peacemakers” from Matthew 5:9 “came to me very quickly in prayer,” he said.
Living recently in Europe, he said the war in Ukraine is felt closely, and Pope Francis has urged an end to that war and the other conflicts raging around the world. Bishop Esposito said that is an issue that is not just close to the heart of the Holy Father, but it is a call for all Catholics and Christians, to work for peace.
“There is another layer (to this), which is other than the wars throughout the world. We need peace,” he said. “What came to me in my prayer is we are so desperate for peace. We need the gift of peace, we need to continue to pray for the gift of peace, peace in our own countries, and we need to heal the tensions and divisions and the polarizations in the institutions and in our hearts.”
Bishop Esposito’s prayer card includes those words from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Also on his prayer card, in the language of his adopted country, English, and in the language of his home country, Spanish, and in the language of his family’s ancestral land, Italian, is a quote from Pope Francis, “Dear brothers and dear sisters, the culture of peace is not built up solely between peoples and nations. It begins in the heart of every one of us.”
