Evelio Menjivar-Ayala

Evelio Menjivar-Ayala (born August 14, 1970) is a Salvadoran-born priest of the Catholic Church who serves as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington in the District of Columbia and Southern Maryland. He is the first Central American to serve as bishop in the United States.

Early life
Evelio Menjivar-Ayala was born on August 14, 1970, in Chalatenango, El Salvador. As a teenager, he made three attempts to enter the United States illegally. He finally arrived in California in 1990, having been smuggled in the trunk of a car with his brother over the border crossing between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California.

Over the next several years, Menjivar-Ayala worked janitorial and construction jobs in California. Deciding to become a priest, he entered the St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami, Florida, in 1995, where he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1999.

Menjivar-Ayala went to Rome in 1999 to enter the seminary at the Pontifical North American College. He received a Master of Theology degree from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in 2002. He completed further studies at the Scalabrini International Migration Institute (SIMI), part of the Pontifical Urban University in Rome, where he earned a licentiate. Menjivar-Ayala was ordained a deacon in St. Peter's Basilica on October 10, 2002, by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan.

Priesthood
On May 29, 2004, Menjivar-Ayala was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Washington by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The archdiocese assigned Menjivar-Ayala as parochial vicar at the following parishes:


 * Mother Seton in Germantown, Maryland (2004 to 2008)
 * Saint Bartholomew the Apostle in Bethesda, Maryland (2009)
 * Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Washington (2009 to 2013)

In 2013, Menjivar-Ayala was appointed pastor of Our Lady Queen of the Americas Parish in Washington. He was transferred in 2017 to St. Mary's Church in Landover Hills, Maryland, to serve as pastor there.

Auxiliary Bishop of Washington
Pope Francis appointed Menjivar-Ayala as an auxiliary bishop of Washington on December 19, 2022. He was consecrated on February 21, 2023, by Cardinal Wilton Gregory at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. The co-consecrators were Bishop Mario Dorsonville and Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell.

His motto, Ibat cum illis ("He walked with them"), comes from Luke 24:15.