As a priest and as a bishop, Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala has been known for walking with people, not only in processions honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe or in prayerful support of immigrants, but also for accompanying individuals and families in joyful and challenging times.
On June 13, hundreds of Hispanic Catholics from across the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington walked with the nation’s first Salvadoran bishop, in a joyful procession to a farewell Mass that was followed by a reception at St. Mary’s Church in Landover Hills, Maryland, where he served as the pastor from 2017 t0 2023, when he became an auxiliary bishop of Washington.
On May 1, Pope Leo XIV appointed him as the new bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, and he will be installed as bishop there on July 2. The farewell Mass and reception at St. Mary’s offered local Hispanic Catholics a chance to say adios and gracias to the priest and bishop who had walked with them.
The native of El Salvador was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington in 2004, and in addition to serving as the pastor of St. Mary’s in Landover Hills and Our Lady Queen of the Americas in Washington, he earlier served as a parochial vicar at Mother Seton Parish in Germantown, St. Bartholomew Parish in Bethesda, and at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington.
The smiling bishop was greeted with applause as he arrived to join a crowd of hundreds of people in front of St. Mary’s School for the procession to the church. Women waved colored cloths and many held red roses. As the procession began with joyful songs in Spanish honoring Jesus and the Blessed Mother, people walked across the parking lot, with some carrying statues of Mary from their Latin American countries, banners representing Hispanic Catholic groups including the Legion de Maria, Programa de Nueva Evangelizacion and Grupo de Oracion, and wearing shirts promoting El Salvador’s patronal feast day in August, Divino Salvador del Mundo – Jesus as the Divine Savior of the World.
Bishop Menjivar greeted the people in the procession as they walked into St. Mary’s Church, and some of the women and girls wore traditional dresses in the blue and white colors of El Salvador’s flag. Inside the church, hundreds more people had gathered for the Mass. The singing at the Spanish-language Mass was led by a choir from Christ the King Parish in Silver Spring.
In his homily, the bishop thanked the people, saying, “All of you are part of my vocation. You have been my teachers.”
He commended St. Mary’s parishioners for their food outreach to neighbors during the COVID-19 pandemic. “You have been close to those in need, and I am grateful for that,” he said, noting the importance of having solidarity with immigrants in this challenging time, “so many who are afraid, so many who have lost hope for a better future in this country.”
Bishop Menjivar, like Pope Francis and Pope Leo and Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy and other Catholic leaders, have decried the Trump administration’s policy of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Encouraging the local Hispanic Catholic community, Bishop Menjivar said, “We have to continue on this path with hope. The mission continues. The Church continues to walk with you. The Lord will continue to guide the community as He always has done.”
In remarks after Communion, Alma Maltez – the program associate for the archdiocese’s Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach – thanked Bishop Menjivar for being “a priest, a brother and a friend who has always walked with us.”
She thanked him for his service to the community, and his outreach to youth and to people with disabilities.
“You have given us hope and love. We are certain wherever you go, the Lord will walk with you,” Maltez said. She added, “You have shown us we can all sit at the table… I have seen the love of Christ in you. Thank you for making us feel heard and loved.”
The large congregation of people, ranging from senior citizens to young adults to families with children, then gave the bishop a standing ovation.
In his closing remarks, Bishop Menjivar invited people to join him at a Marian festival in Emmitsburg in October, and to bring images of the Blessed Mother from their native countries. He said he hoped to establish a place of pilgrimage in West Virginia dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
After processing from the altar after the Mass, the bishop posed for a group photo with the congregation, and then as he walked down the aisle, he was handed a baby that he held up and blessed. He continued greeting and blessing people as they left the Mass and headed downstairs to the reception.
After the Mass and during the reception, people reflected on the bishop and the impact he had on their lives.
Kevin Herrera – a 20-year-old student at the University of Michigan who is majoring in neuroscience and hopes to go to medical school – noted that then-Father Menjivar baptized and confirmed him at the Easter Vigil at St. Mary’s Church when he was 16.
“He has always been a friend. He has always been more than a priest. He has been someone you can come to in all of your hardships,” said Herrera.
The young adult was born in Virginia, and his mother is from Honduras and his father is from Guatemala. “We feel blessed that someone from our community is reaching these heights,” he said, adding that Bishop Menjivar’s example has inspired him to think about the priesthood, after “being able to see myself reflected in him.”
Reflecting on his own journey of faith and the bishop’s journey of faith, Herrera said, “Seeing the way in which God has favored him assures me that even in my time of uncertainty, everything that has come forth afterwards has always been with God’s timing.”
Rafael Diaz, a St. Mary’s parishioner and native of El Salvador who is a tractor trailer driver in the Washington and Baltimore area, noted how then-Father Menjivar joined parishioners in distributing food in the parish parking lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. “He helped a lot of families in the neighborhood. He was there to do it personally. For me to see a priest do that, means a lot,” Diaz said.
When Evelio Menjivar was a young adult and an immigrant from El Salvador living and working in the Washington area, he met Carlos Aquino and his wife Sonia Marlene, who were then the youth ministers at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart. Carlos Aquino, who is also an immigrant from El Salvador, now works as a systems engineer and remains as a Sacred Heart parishioner. The friend and mentor to Bishop Menjivar noted how in his younger years, the future priest and bishop was active in youth ministry activities, and that became a priority of his own pastoral ministry at the parish and archdiocesan levels.
Aquino praised Bishop Menjivar for his faith and his love for the community he serves, and for “always bringing people to the Virgin Mary and Christ.” He said Bishop Menjivar’s ministry has been inspirational to immigrants.
“I feel very proud. We came at a time when we escaped civil war. We had no hope. Look at him. He’s preaching hope, and taking hope to other places,” Aquino said.
In an interview during the reception, Elida Vargas, a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Gaithersburg who helps prepare Hispanic students for college, said, “We are going to miss him, but the community where he is going will be happy with him.” She added, “Most importantly, he protects the immigrants. They need the support of all of us.”
Father Mario Majano, who succeeded Bishop Menjivar as the pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Landover Hills, said, “He has a heart for the poor. You can really tell he feels what’s happening in the community. He’s in touch with people, with families. He’s a pastor at heart. As a bishop, he leads with a pastor’s heart.”
St. Mary’s pastor added that Bishop Menjivar “really understood that being elevated to bishop gave him an opportunity to take all these things happening in the community and shed light on it. He uses himself to be a voice for the people.”
Anahi Herrera, who moved with her family to Frederick, Maryland, where she works in the financial office of a hospital, said her children who were altar servers and in the youth group at St. Mary’s when then-Father Menjivar was pastor insisted that their family continue to attend the Landover Hills parish, even though it is more than an hour’s drive away. She expressed gratitude for how Bishop Menjivar took care of the youth in that parish. “He knows they’re the future of the Church,” she said.
The reception honoring Bishop Menjivar featured traditional Salvadoran food, including pupusas and tacos. As joyful music played, women and girls in traditional blue and white dresses danced along with men in straw hats, blue shirts and white slacks. The bishop smiled and posed for photos with guests who lined up to see and thank him.
After speaking at the Mass, Alma Maltez in an interview at the reception reflected on Bishop Menjivar’s ministry, which she first witnessed as a volunteer and then as the director of religious education at St. Mary’s Parish. She also noted how as St. Mary’s pastor, then-Father Menjivar lifted boxes out of the trucks during the parish’s food distributions to help people get through the pandemic, and he also brought food to people waiting in cars and talked with them.
“For him to show them the love of God through that service to the community was powerful,” she said.
Maltez said the immigrant community “sees him as a person who is there to speak up. He understands the immigrant community, because he himself is an immigrant. He knows suffering. He knows about being afraid.”
After working with Father and then Bishop Menjivar for more than a decade, Maltez said sharing God’s love has been a hallmark of his ministry. She said when he begins serving in West Virginia, “he will come to listen to his people, to get to know them in humility, to engage with people, to walk with them, that is what is strong about him.”
