You’ve probably seen the headlines: Pope Leo chose as the new bishop of West Virginia a certain Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, a once-deported illegal immigrant who snuck into our country in the trunk of a car in 1990 and later wangled U.S. citizenship. This bishop’s elevation was clearly a gesture—in fact, an obscene one—on the part of a Church that, in theory, claims not to promote open borders, but in fact condemns every effort of Western countries to control mass immigration, legal or illegal….
The (Christian) Post quoted evangelical author and political pundit Steve Deace…:
Barely 2% of West Virginia is Hispanic. Barely 1% of the state speaks Spanish. This is a purely political appointment by a woke pope trying to shoehorn his open borders agenda into a state Trump has won by 40 points three times. There’s nothing prophetic here, but it’s all shamefully political.
I agree. I would love nothing more than to see the Trump administration set its best lawyers to the task of investigating whether Bishop Menjivar-Ayala committed immigration fraud, such that his citizenship could be revoked and he could be deported—to an El Salvador that’s now peaceful and prosperous, thanks to a solid law-and-order government that doesn’t pay attention to the bleating of clerics infected by Liberation Theology. That would be a glorious gesture, affirming the right of American citizens to see their own just and democratically enacted laws and national sovereignty respected—which is Caesar’s proper role, whatever overreaching, Utopian clerics say to the contrary…
This pope, and the cardinals who elected him—most of whom were appointed by the ham-handed globalist innovator, Pope Francis—is clashing with the Trump administration not over points of solemn Christian principle, but rather over politics. Put bluntly, the bishops of the Church in the West are, in general, far to the left both of their congregations and most priests under age 60, having long-ago soft-pedaled personal holiness and traditional morality in favor of turning the Church into a humanitarian NGO that relies heavily on taxpayer funds—like Amnesty International, with incense.
I trust that the DOJ investigation of Evelio Menjivar-Ayala’s citizenship will turn up the truth about his status.
What was Pope Leo thinking when he made this appointment ?
I can’t know for sure, Fred; but I suspect he was trying to assert a faux theological point using this appointment to advance a political and cultural agenda.