Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Leo XIV on Friday named a former undocumented migrant as bishop of West Virginia, weeks after a high-profile verbal confrontation with US President Donald Trump. The US-born leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has been highly critical of Trump over immigration and the Middle East war.
The Vatican in a statement announced the nomination of 56-year-old Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, currently an auxiliary bishop in Washington. Born in El Salvador, Menjivar-Ayala migrated to the United States in 1990, according to a biography on the Washington diocese website. He has spoken in interviews about being born into poverty and fleeing conflict in his native country to arrive in the US as a refugee.
After being initially detained in Mexico trying to get to the US, he said in an interview last year that he paid a bribe to get out and crossed the border at Tijuana. He was ordained as a priest in 2004 and became a bishop in 2023. He is nominated to the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia.
Leo last month declared Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand their congressmen “work for peace”. That prompted scathing criticism from the US president, who slammed the pontiff as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy”. The pope has also called the treatment of migrants in the US “extremely disrespectful”, adding: “We have to look for ways of treating people humanely”.
© 2024 AFP
