Pope Francis on Dec.19 appointed two priests of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington – Msgr. Juan R. Esposito-Garcia and Father Evelio Menjivar-Ayala – as new auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese.

Their appointments, announced in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the United States, were hailed by Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory who said “our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has blessed the Archdiocese of Washington” with the new bishops.

Bishop-elect Esposito, who turns 49 Jan. 10, is currently serving as an official in the Dicastery for Bishops at the Vatican. Bishop-elect Menjivar, 52, is currently pastor of St. Mary Parish in Landover Hills, Maryland.

The bishops-elect join the archdiocese’s two other auxiliary bishops, Bishop Mario Dorsonville and Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. The episcopal ordination for Bishop-elect Esposito and Bishop-elect Menjivar is scheduled for Feb.21, 2023.

At a Dec. 19 press conference announcing the new bishops at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, Paula Gwynn Grant, the archdiocese’s Secretary for Communications, said, “It is a wonderful day for the Church of Washington today. We are celebrating (that) Pope Francis has given us a gift, two new auxiliary bishops.”

Speaking at the press briefing, which was attended by Pastoral Center employees, Cardinal Gregory said, “Ours is a spiritually enthusiastic and zealous presbyterate from which these two outstanding men have distinguished themselves.”

“Both their brother priests who have served with them and the faithful for whom they have cared are already blessed to know them as pastors and leaders. I am confident that our entire archdiocesan family will come to do so very soon as well,” he said.

Because Bishop-elect Esposito is currently in Argentina visiting his parents on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary, he was unable to attend the press conference in person.

In a prepared statement read by Cardinal Gregory, Bishop-elect Esposito expressed his “deepest gratitude” for what he called “this new opportunity to continue to serve everyone in our beautiful Archdiocese of Washington.”

After he was introduced at the press conference by Cardinal Gregory, Bishop-elect Menjivar said, “I thank the Holy Father, Pope Francis, for appointing me auxiliary bishop of Washington. I have accepted this appointment very much aware of my own personal limitations. At the same time, I accept it with much joy, trusting that God’s grace and the maternal care of Our Lady of Guadalupe will never fail.” 

Bishop-elect Menjivar was born Aug. 14, 1970, in Chalatenango, El Salvador. He came to the United States with his brother as a teenager, because of violence and unrest in his home country, while his family remained in El Salvador. He is now a U.S. citizen. He attended St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami (1995-1999) and the Pontifical North American College in Rome (2003). He was ordained to the priesthood on May 29, 2004.

“I thank the people of the different parishes where I have served as priest for over 18 years,” Bishop-elect Menjivar said. “Your faith and your love for the church and the priests have sustained my own faith and enriched my ministry.”

Bishop-elect Menjivar’s assignments in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington include: parochial vicar at Mother Seton Parish in Germantown, Maryland (2004-2008); parochial vicar at St. Bartholomew Parish in Bethesda, Maryland (2008); parochial vicar at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. (2013-2014); and pastor at Our Lady Queen of the Americas Parish in Washington, D.C. (2014-2017). Since 2017, he has served as pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Landover Hills, Maryland. 

“These communities of faith have enriched my own faith and my ministry. Just walking with people, serving people and just being one of them is what has sustained me, both as a person, as a Christian and as a priest,” he said.

Bishop-elect Menjivar serves as dean of the Middle Prince George’s County deanery, is a member of the Priest Personnel Board, and is a member of the Archdiocesan Child Protection Advisory Board. During his ministry, he has actively supported workers and promoted social justice for immigrants.

Cardinal Gregory said Bishop-elect Menjivar  is believed to be the first Salvadoran to be named as a bishop for the United States. 

“I am honored to be a Salvadoran here in one of the largest Salvadoran communities in the United States,” Bishop-elect Menjivar  said in Spanish. “I feel at home here in Washington.”

Bishop-elect Menjivar credited his mother as “a pillar of faith for me and an inspiration. She is the one who taught me how to work, to pray, to serve, (and) to never give up.”

He said he was “very much surprised” by his appointment and “I thought of what Juan Diego said to Our Lady of Guadalupe: ‘You have so many other better servants you can send.’” Noting that he worked as a house painter before entering the seminary, Bishop-elect Menjivar said. “I just wanted to be a priest in service to the Church – I never expected this.”

In his new role, Bishop-elect Menjivar said, “I just hope to serve everybody, the whole Church. Obviously I have a special love for the Hispanic community. We are all children of God and the Church is our mother who embraces each and every one of us. In the Catholic Church, we are always home with family, no matter from where we came.”

Asked what the Catholic community can expect from him as a bishop, Bishop-elect Menjivar said, “Honestly, I want to walk with them. Walking with them means sharing their challenges, celebrating and even crying together,” he said, noting that next week, he would be presiding at a Funeral Mass for a 15-year-old girl who recently died. 

Bishop-elect Menjivar added, “…I want to be with them in the joyful moments as well as the not so joyful moments, in good times and bad. That’s what being a priest means. I hope to be a good shepherd, a good pastor.”

Thanking Cardinal Gregory “for his support and for accepting me as one of his auxiliary bishops,” Bishop-elect Menjivar told him, “you are a great shepherd so I feel at peace knowing that you will be a good and gentle mentor as well.”

Bishop-elect Esposito was born Jan. 10, 1974, in San Louis, Argentina.  After obtaining a law degree at Catholic University of Cuyo in San Luis, Argentina, he came to the United States, where he completed his ecclesiastical studies and earned a master of divinity and a master of arts in moral theology from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He holds both a licentiate and a doctorate in Canon Law from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

He was ordained to the priesthood on June 14, 2008 for The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, and he was named a monsignor in 2020. 

Bishop-elect Esposito’s assignments in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington include: parochial vicar at the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, Maryland (2008-2010); parochial vicar at St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in Hyattsville, Maryland (2010-2012); parochial vicar at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Maryland (2013); and as pro tem parochial vicar at Ascension Parish in Bowie, Maryland (2013-2014). He was also adjunct professor of canon law and and assistant spiritual director at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland (2014-2017). 

From 2012-2018, he served in the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Washington as a judge (2012-2018) and then as adjunct judicial vicar and judicial vicar (2014-2017). Bishop-elect Esposito has also served as a member of the Seminary Admission Committee (2012-2017); as an instructor in the archdiocesan Marriage Preparation Program (2010-2015); and as a member of the Committee for the Archdiocesan Synod (2013-2014). 

Since 2018, he has served as an official in the Dicastery for Bishops in Vatican City. Bishop-elect Esposito speaks English, Spanish, and Italian. 

In Bishop-elect Esposito’s statement read by Cardinal Gregory, the bishop-elect recalled Pope Francis’s 2015 visit to Washington, when the pontiff addressed U.S bishops at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. In that address to bishops, Pope Francis said, “know that the pope is at your side…whenever [your] hand reaches out to do good or to show the love of Christ, to dry a tear or bring comfort to the lonely, to show the way to one who is lost or to console a broken heart, to help the fallen or to teach those thirsting for truth, to forgive or to offer a new start in God…” 

“These words have resonated deeply in my prayer during these last few days. They are a beautiful, profound and detailed description of the pastoral ministry of every bishop and, indeed, of every priest,” Bishop-elect Esposito’s statement said.

Cardinal Gregory noted that Bishop-elect Esposito may be the first native of Argentina to be named as a bishop in the United States, and he pointed out that the announcement came on the day after Argentina won the World Cup soccer championship.  He added that the people of Argentina “are very proud once again today – this time of one of their native sons, Juan.”

Noting that both new auxiliary bishops are priests of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, Cardinal Gregory said, “We are blessed in this archdiocese with wonderful, wonderful priests. I was overwhelmed with the number of worthy candidates” qualified to be an auxiliary bishop in this archdiocese.

He said he petitioned the pope for the new auxiliary bishops “to provide for the increasing pastoral needs – the challenges and the opportunities – of our parishes, schools, and communities.” He said that in addition to the ceremonial dimension of their work in celebrating parish Masses and presiding at Confirmations and Ordinations, auxiliary bishops also assist the archbishop with “a lot of the pastoral situations that go beyond a particular parish,” such as serving the priests and deacons in the archdiocese. “In a real sense, the auxiliary is an extension of the ministry of the diocesan bishops. I can’t possibly be at every place or attend to every need, and the auxiliary bishops help me in doing that,”  the cardinal said.

Also at the press conference, Cardinal Gregory noted the attendance of retired Washington Auxiliary Bishop Francisco González, a native of Spain and a member of the  Sons of the Holy Family religious order who served in that role beginning in 2002 and retired in recent years. The cardinal praised Bishop González, saying, “His service in a very wonderful way laid the foundation for Hispanic ministry in the archdiocese.”

Cardinal Gregory, who served as an auxiliary bishop in his home Archdiocese of Chicago from 1983 until being appointed as the bishop of Belleville, Illinois in 1994, was asked after the press briefing if he had any advice for Washington’s new auxiliary bishops, based on his experience as an auxiliary bishop.

He said that as an auxiliary bishop of Chicago, he was very fortunate to have a “wonderful mentor in Cardinal (Joseph) Bernardin,” then the archbishop of Chicago. “He told me, ‘Stay with the people, don’t get caught up in the office. Pray with them, listen to them, encourage them, comfort them.”