In late May – a few weeks after Pope Leo XIV had appointed him to serve as the new bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia – Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala went home to his village in El Salvador.
“The rainy season started. Everything is green. The hills are green. It’s amazing how similar the landscape is,” Bishop Menjivar said, comparing the countryside in El Salvador to West Virginia, which will become his new home.
“I was born in a very small village in the hills. It’s very hilly. There are some rivers there, not as great as in West Virginia. It’s kind of similar to the hollers in West Virginia,” he said, using the name used for the hollows or valleys between the hills and mountains of the Appalachian region.
He noted that some of the issues faced by the people of West Virginia and El Salvador are similar, including how young people from small towns or villages in those places who go to college can’t find work when they return home, so they relocate to cities where there are jobs.
About one month before his July 2 installation as the bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, the nation’s first Salvadoran bishop reflected on the roots of his faith and his goals for leading his new di0cese that encompasses the entire state of West Virginia.
Bishop Menjivar – who will be 56 years old on Aug. 14 – grew up in Chalatenango, El Salvador, one of seven children of Cándido Menjívar and Catalina Ayala de Menjívar. His father, a farmer, died 10 years ago, and his mother is 92 and lives in El Salvador. Bishop Menjivar’s sister Elva and brother Felipe live in Maryland.
“It was a very religious village. The faith was lived in the family,” Bishop Menjivar said, noting that the village didn’t have its own priest. He remembers seeing his parents praying before going to bed, and how people in the village prayed the Angelus and rosary every day. “That was part of the faith and culture of the people,” he said.
That witness of faith by his parents and the other villagers, he said, helped him appreciate the domestic church. “It’s families that keep the faith alive in their children,” he said, noting how his village’s families passed on important values to their children like honesty and caring for your neighbor and those in need.
In 1982, his family was forced to abandon the village because of the country’s worsening civil war. As a teenager, Evelio Menjivar became more attached to the Church through youth ministry and parish programs offered by the Bethlehemite Sisters, a religious order that originated in Guatemala.
“I was able to connect to the parish, to the Church. It was the religious sisters who kept the flame alive… It was great to share the faith with the sisters,” he said, noting he helped as a catechist when the sisters would go to different villages to teach the faith to children. “It was there I experienced my first call to the priesthood because of the sisters.”
But he said due to the civil war, he had no possibility to explore the call then.
Later, he made the decision to try to flee El Salvador. “It was a desperate situation. It was a matter of survival. Living in a civil war, what chances to you have?” he said, adding, “The possibilities were very high that you could be drafted by the guerillas or the government and then be killed. Many of my cousins, they got killed.”
In his third attempt to enter the United States, Evelio Menjivar made it across the border and entered the country as an undocumented immigrant in 1990 at the age of 19, hiding in a car trunk with his brother and a cousin.
After applying for asylum and gaining a work permit and later a green card, he became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
Bishop Menjivar summarized his work history in 1984 as he addressed graduates at Georgetown University and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
“In 1990, I arrived in Los Angeles, California with only a change of clothes in a backpack, but full of dreams,” Bishop Menjivar told the graduates. “As most immigrants do, I did any kind of job I could get: receptionist, construction, janitorial work, painting, youth ministry. Meanwhile, I took English classes at night, and I also studied for the high school equivalency degree.”
Ultimately after moving to the Washington area, he felt called to another job – to become a Catholic priest. He said Father Mark Brennan, then the director of priest vocations for the Archdiocese of Washington, “saw potential in me when he worked with me in applying to the seminary. I was a construction worker, but he believed in me.”
After studying at St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami and the North American College in Rome, Father Evelio Menjivar was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington in 2004.
Over the years, he served as the pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Landover Hills, Maryland, and Our Lady Queen of the Americas in Washington, and he earlier served as a parochial vicar at two Maryland parishes, Mother Seton in Germantown and St. Bartholomew in Bethesda, and at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington.
In 2023, he was ordained as an auxiliary bishop of Washington, becoming the first bishop of the United States who had been born in El Salvador.
Then on May 1, 2026, Pope Leo appointed him to lead the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. Coincidentally, he is succeeding Bishop Mark Brennan, who had supported him when he wanted to become a priest.
Bishop Menjivar said that considering all of his work experiences, it was providential that his appointment to West Virginia was announced on May 1, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, the foster father of Jesus who worked as a carpenter.
“I’m going as St. Joseph’s helper. I know my job is like St. Joseph, to take care of God’s family, the Church, and to protect God’s children,” he said.
In West Virginia, he will be leading a diocese in a state of workers, including those working in health care, education, farming, mining, engineering and business.
“The first thing I bring is respect and love for work and respect for workers. No matter what you do, I see value and dignity in work,” the bishop said.
Driving through West Virginia, he said he sees the pride in the workmanship of roads, bridges and buildings, including the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, where he will be installed as the bishop there.
Another part of the West Virginia landscape that has struck him, along with its scenic beauty, is how churches can be seen along the roadways in its towns and cities.
“West Virginians, as Appalachians, are very religious, very spiritual people,” he said, adding that he is looking forward to meeting and working with other faith leaders there.
When he was introduced as the next bishop of Wheeling-Charleston at a May 1 press conference, Bishop Menjivar noted that he knew the state, because he has done a lot of hiking, “his favorite sport,” in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests there, and some years ago he bought a small cabin in the “hollers,” where he said his neighbors have welcomed him.
“The people are very loving, caring and welcoming. That is my experience,” he said in the interview with the Catholic Standard, adding, “They all know what is happening in the life of the other. In the holler, they know each other very well and they care for each other. They know if somebody is going through a hardship or illness.”
Once after his neighbors found out that he wanted to put a planter beside his cabin to grow vegetables, he later returned to find that they had put a planter there for him.
After Bishop Menjivar spent time in West Virginia and had a cabin there, he began listening to and enjoying bluegrass and other music of that region.
“I wanted to connect with the land and with the people,” he said. “As an immigrant, we have that longing and desire for belonging.... I started to explore the culture of West Virginia and Appalachia. I wanted to get to know not just the land, but the people.”
As he got to know his neighbors, the bishop has seen that they are mindful and proud of their heritage, of the earlier generations of immigrants in their families who lived and worked there.
In West Virginia, Catholics and Hispanics are a small minority of the population. As a priest and bishop in Washington, Bishop Menjivar was known for supporting immigrants and workers, and he said he plans to continue that social justice advocacy in West Virginia, noting that Hispanics there work in chicken farms and plants.
“I’m going to be a pastor for everyone, not just one group,” the bishop said.
Noting that Catholic Charities has a strong presence in West Virginia, Bishop Menjivar said he will be concerned with other issues including mental health challenges that people face, and the need for access to healthy food and fresh drinking water. Another pastoral priority for him will be working to include young people in the life of the Church.
“The first goal is to bring the Gospel to people in prayer and liturgies and in parish communities,” he said.
A key priority for him as he begins serving in West Virginia, he said, “will be to listen to the pastors and to the people. They are the ones who will show me the way, and what are their priorities. The first priority is to listen and to love them and to serve them… I’m going to go with open ears and an open heart.”
Bishop Menjivar said he hopes to “keep building up the Church and to propose the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all.”
Reflecting on his years serving as a priest and bishop in Washington, he said, “It’s not easy to say goodbye to my local church, to my home church… At the same time, my mind is already there in West Virginia.”
The bishop said one of the beautiful things about the Archdiocese of Washington is its diversity, and when he would celebrate Masses at parishes, it was often like a Pentecost experience, with people sitting side-by-side in the pews from different countries and backgrounds, including “executives, lawyers, nannies, people working in construction and the hospitality industry.”
In the Archdiocese of Washington, he was known for joining people in the Walk with Mary processions honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas, and also leading processions to show prayerful support for and solidarity with migrants.
“I’m very thankful for the great opportunities I had here in Washington to serve the Church and walk with people,” he said.
Being a newcomer to West Virginia is not a new experience for Wheeling-Charleston’s next bishop. “It’s not the first time I’m arriving in a town without knowing anybody, having to learn my way around and getting to know the people.”
When he became a bishop three years ago, he chose the motto “He walked with them,” from the account of the risen Christ walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:15.
“That is Jesus walking with us, with the Church,” said Bishop Menjivar, who added, “Also that’s my call, to walk with people. Being an immigrant has not only formed me, but transformed me, in what I have become, and in who I am, and I bring that with me.”
Now like many immigrants before him, he will bring his faith to his new home.
Reflecting on his journey of faith, the bishop said, “It is God’s work…. God brought me here to the United States. I had my own plans. God had his own plans. I take that as a blessing. The fact that God brought me from El Salvador in a very small village to serve in Washington, a very important city, and now he’s sending me to West Virginia, I see I’m being sent as a missionary.”
