‘We speak from different pulpits:’ New WV bishop says he doesn’t see himself as Trump opponent

“So I would say that… we are in different situations,” he said. “So it’s not opposition. It’s just that he has some responsibilities that I don’t have, and I have some responsibilities that he doesn’t have. So we speak from different pulpits, I would say.”

Menjivar, who was the United States’ first Salvadoran bishop, was appointed May 1 by Pope Leo XIV to be the 10th bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. He was installed July 2 in Wheeling. 

The reverend, 56, was a child during the civil war between the U.S.-backed Salvadorian government and a coalition of guerilla groups.

Menjivar said he feared if he stayed in his home he would be drafted into the conflict. 

“The only way to kind of save my life or, you know, to have a future was just leaving El Salvador,” he said. “So that’s how the plan came to be. 

“And obviously I didn’t have the opportunity to come documented, so I did what many, many immigrants were doing: So (I) just took my backpack and set to the north, undocumented,” he said.

Menjivar made two unsuccessful attempts to enter the U.S. before being smuggled across the border in the trunk of a car in 1990. 

Weeks after arriving in Los Angeles, he got a work permit to stay in the United States. It wasn’t until 1996, when he was working as a youth minister, that he became a permanent resident through a religious visa, he said. 

He’s been a United States citizen since 2006. 

Menjivar was religious growing up, but said he didn’t see a future as a priest in the church in Salvador while it was being persecuted during the war. 

He was around 10 in 1980 when Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating mass. The same year, four American catholic missionaries — three nuns and one lay worker — were raped and shot to death by members of the Salvador national guard in an attack that sparked international outrage. 

He said seeing the violence against the church helped to solidify his faith, requiring him to take it more seriously. 

“It becomes a faith that has to be proven,” he said. “It stops being a cultural faith, that is sometimes the problem, that you are just culturally religious. But in this case, it’s something that you take more seriously, knowing that there is a risk by believing and by practicing that faith.”

Menjivar discovered his vocation in the ministry after coming to the United States and getting more involved with his parish, working as a youth minister, he said. 

After completing seminary and a master’s degree in theology, he was ordained for the priesthood in 2004. In 2023, he became auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese of Washington.

The bishop has criticized the Trump administration’s policies, comparing immigrants’ plight to the suffering of Jesus in a Holy Week essay last year. 

While West Virginia voters have overwhelmingly supported Trump in the last three presidential elections, the bishop said he doesn’t see West Virginia as “red.” He sees it most as green because of the vegetation, he said. 

“I don’t see things as red or blue. I’m here as a pastor, and I’m going to see everything through that perspective,” he said. 

He said the church’s responsibility during the Trump administration is the same it’s always been — to defend the human dignity of everyone. 

“Jesus is our model. He’s our teacher, and he gave us beautiful parables: the parable of the Good Samaritan: who will have compassion for that person in the road?” he said. “And we help people without asking, without questioning their status. We just help because they are human beings. 

“So that is, I would say, our stand, when we defend life, immigrants, the poor, the marginalized workers,” he said. “It is through that perspective that we need to defend and uphold the dignity of every person, from conception to natural death.”

Menjivar is not a stranger to West Virginia. He bought a cabin in the Lost River area of Hardy County during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also helped in a Spanish-speaking community in Martinsburg soon after being ordained, he said. 

“What I love about West Virginia is that sense of community,” he said. “I have gone to parish festivals and I see that everybody knows each other, you know, and the joy of sharing. And one of the things that happen here is that people like to talk.”

He said West Virginia is much more similar to his home in rural El Salvador than the D.C. area where he served previously. 

“It seems like the pace here is a little slower than Washington,” he said. 

Menjivar said he comes to the role of bishop here without an agenda or goals. He first wants to learn more about West Virginia and what the issues are here, he said. 

The church is planning to have a series of 17 meetings throughout the state, during which the bishop will hear from parishioners. They hope to have the meetings done by the end of October.  

“My only plan these days, these coming months, is to go out listening to the pastors, to the priests and to the people, and perhaps then we can come up with some goals for the diocese,” he said. “But these are going to be whatever the pastors and the people present. I mean, what do they see as pressing needs?”

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