Pope names former undocumented migrant as US bishop of West Virginia

Pope Leo XIV on Friday named a former undocumented migrant as bishop of West Virginia, weeks after a high-profile clash 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 announced the nomination of Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, currently an auxiliary bishop in Washington, to the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in the poor mountainous state of West Virginia.

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 United States as a refugee.

After being initially detained in Mexico trying to get to the United States, he said in an interview last year that he paid a bribe to get out and crossed the border at Tijuana.

Menjivar-Ayala, who is fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, was ordained as a priest in 2004 and became a bishop in 2023.

Trump and the pontiff have been at odds over US immigration enforcement and the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Leo last month declared Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers “work for peace.”

That prompted scathing criticism from the US president, who slammed the pontiff in a social media post as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”

Trump said he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo” and that he does not “want a pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump campaigned for the White House pledging to deport millions of undocumented migrants and a number of top US Catholic leaders have been critical of the sweeping nationwide crackdown.

The pope has called the treatment of migrants in the United States “extremely disrespectful” and said “we have to look for ways of treating people humanely.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed concern recently in an open letter over the “current climate of fear and polarization” in the United States.

And Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, a top ally of the pope, urged Americans to contact their members of Congress and tell them to vote against renewed funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which has been spearheading the crackdown on migrants.