
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 15, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Evelio Menjivar came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant in 1990. Today he serves as an auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C., and is the first Salvadoran U.S. bishop in an archdiocese that is home to over 200,000 of his former countrymen.
In an interview with “EWTN News in Depth,” Menjivar shared his conviction that immigrants “make the United States a great nation” and “make society better.”
After years of “blue-collar jobs,” upon his arrival to the U.S., Menjivar felt a calling to the priesthood and was ordained in 2004. He served as a parish priest in Washington for almost two decades until Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop in 2022.
“I came here when I was 20 with a great desire to work hard, to go to school, to contribute to the well-being of this great nation that became my home country,” Menjivar told Montse Alvarado, EWTN News president and COO.
Menjivar said he attempted to enter the country three times before making it to Los Angeles. He explained: “I don’t feel proud that I crossed the border without documents.”
“But it is a testimony that many people cross the border with good intentions,” he said.
“Most immigrants come here because they do not find any other option in their countries and they put their own lives at risk. But once we enter here, we contribute with our own talents, with our own energy,” he told Alvarado.
He described the violence and chaos that led him to flee El Salvador for the United States.
“I was growing up during the civil war that started in … 1977,” Menjivar said. “We were forced to abandon our village in 1982. We relocated to another town in the same area, but the whole area was abandoned, left with nobody.”
“So the war was there,” he said. “That was the situation that I grew up in, and then in 1990 is when I left El Salvador, and the war continued for two more years.”
“Religious sisters, even American sisters, were killed. Many priests were killed. Catechists were killed. It was a situation of war that pushed me and pushed so many immigrants to leave their countries,” the bishop explained.
Menjivar said immigration is a “journey marked by a lot of uncertainty, fear, but also with hope.”
During Menjivar’s episcopal ordination Cardinal Wilton Gregory, then-archbishop of Washington, commended Menjivar’s dedication to those who work unfair wages to make a day’s living.
“Cardinal Gregory said very beautifully in the homily that I should never forget my roots,” Menjivar said. “And that way people, immigrants, anybody, will be able to be more open to share their own stories, knowing that I’m going to understand them.”
“As most immigrants do, I did janitorial work, I did construction, painting, youth ministry, you name it, all kinds of blue-collar jobs. And so that helped me to understand labor, hard labor, to learn to work hard.”
He said he is “very proud” of the work he did when he arrived in the U.S. and believes it is a “gift to be able to understand the hardships that people go through.”
EWTN’s Alvarado and Menjivar discussed a letter he and his brother bishops received from Pope Francis asking them to always remember human dignity when addressing immigration in the political climate today.
“The pope emphasizes the importance, the need, to defend the dignity of human beings, of immigrants,” Menjivar said. “His message is a message of concern … for the well-being of everybody.”
When asked about the lack of Hispanic bishops in the U.S. Church in light of how many Hispanic Catholics there are in the country, Menjivar said he is seeing progress in that direction, adding that he believes it’s very important that “shepherds understand their flock.”
“Yes, there are not many Hispanic bishops, but the number [is] increasing. There are more and more, especially during the last years with Pope Francis.”
“One of the things that we need to do as a Church is to promote more vocations to the priesthood. We need more Hispanic priests, that’s for sure. We need more deacons, we need more religious sisters and brothers to serve the Church.”
Asked to comment on how he responds to people in his community who fear deportation during this uncertain time, Menjivar said that while many “are expressing fear and anxiety” they are turning to the Church and to their faith for consolation.
“Thanks be to God, we have people that are very hopeful,” he said. “And they know that this is the moment when they need the Church the most. That they need to come as a community to pray.”
“People don’t know what is going to happen to them. But one of the beautiful things that we are seeing here is that people, they continue going to church and celebrating their faith.”
Menjivar said he never lost faith on his journey to the U.S. and has been able to continue on that path that led him to become a bishop because he knows “there [are] always people praying for us. There is always a light that is lit.”
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Is EWTN feeling the pressure from liberal bishops? They feature former head of Catholic Relief Services in opposition to President Trump trying to stop illegal immigration and now a bishop who justifies illegal immigration. I will have to see where this goes before anymore donations to EWTN.
I think the bishop was attempting to explain why he came here the way he did. Not justifying it. He stated he wasn’t proud of it.
I believe in law and order and secure borders but the problem isn’t so much about otherwise decent people like this bishop who cross our borders. It’s about the organized crime that is paid to bring them here. That needs to be shut down. Both for our sake and the sake of Latin American communities being wracked with cartel violence and extortion.
I’m afraid that with Mother Angelica’s passing, EWTN has gone WOKE. What a shame.
Wow! I think that the first thing President Trump has to tell Cardinal McElroy, in one of Cardinal McElroy’s ‘Synodality’ ‘listening sessions’ with President Trump, is to go back and tell Pope Francis to make Cardinal Evelio Menjivar head Bishop of Washington D.C, and Bishop McElroy as auxiliary Bishop.
Hmmm, well, would the good bishop ever say the words, “do not enter the United States illegally” or “only come with the desire to enter via the legal process”? Of course not.
The despicable mob rush at the US southern border is a crime he encourages via his silence. Follow the money, always follow the money,
Bishop: Let’s get one thing straight – NO ONE IS SAYING MIGRANTS ARE UNWELCOME IN THE USA – NO ONE.
What Americans think, however, is that those who wish to settle here do so LEGALLY i e. respecting our laws.
Plase, bishop, don’t try to play us.
International Migration and Minorities Research has shown that from historical times human beings have made super human endeavors to cross oceans and seas in the hope to migrate to new land masses.
Communities blessed with access to water-bodies like those in Polynesia, Melanesia, British Isles, the Caribbean Islands, Scandinavia, China, Japan, Arabia, Israel, the Indian subcontinent, the Indonesian Archipelago, and several such non-water-fearing and water-challenge-loving populations have a long history of migrating, settling, toiling, and meticulously developing the lands they happened to visit.
For centuries daring Europeans from Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany – have left behind a fascinating history of discovering new lands and encountering new peoples and learning new habits from people living in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
Braving ferocious winds and crossing rivers and seas, crisscrossing deserts, climbing hills and valleys, wading through hostile jungles that were often infested by wild animals, several of the old-timers ultimately made it and became beacons of inspiration for posterity.
Much exemplary labor has been invested by hordes of such migrants in the North and South Islands of New Zealand, across Australia, the entire Indian subcontinent, in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, in Canada, and in the United States of America.
Learning from their heroic efforts, newer generations believe nothing is impossible. Several challenge-embracing women and men are on the look out to migrate, toil, serve, and make the country of their choice greater than before. History, they say repeats itself.
For the life of me, why don’t people understand the obvious and HUGE difference between immigration and ILLEGAL immigration?
Captain Obvious, people!
The US is a nation of immigrants, from many countries and walks of life.
We should take care to not become a lawless nation of illegal immigrants.
Or are we already?