WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has appointed two Washington archdiocesan priests, Msgr. Juan R. Esposito-Garcia and Father Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, as auxiliary bishops of their archdiocese.

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

Their appointments were announced Dec. 19 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vatican nuncio to the United States.

They both will be ordained bishops Feb. 21.

Born in Argentina, Bishop-designate Esposito-Garcia was ordained a priest for the Washington Archdiocese June 14, 2008. He has been a dicastery official since 2018 and was named a monsignor in 2021.

From 2016 to 2018, he was an adjunct judicial vicar and judicial vicar for the Washington archdiocesan tribunal.

Bishop-designate Menjivar-Ayala was born in Chalatenango, El Salvador, and came to the United States with his brother as a teenager because of the violence and unrest in his home country, while his family remained in El Salvador.

Ordained for the Washington Archdiocese May 29, 2004, he has been pastor in Landover Hills since 2017.

As auxiliaries, the bishops-designate will join Auxiliary Bishops Roy E. Campbell Jr. and Mario E. Dorsonville in serving the archdiocese alongside Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington.

The cardinal said the pope has blessed the archdiocese by appointing two new auxiliaries “to serve all of Christ’s flock in this local church.”

“They have been selected from a zealous and generous local presbyterate, and now they are appointed as bishops,” he said in a statement.

“They represent the goodness of all of our people, and both will dedicate themselves tirelessly to the promotion of the Gospel and the mission of Christ in serving with me and all of our clergy and faithful,” Cardinal Gregory added.

Bishop-designate Esposito-Garcia born Jan. 10, 1974, in San Luis, Argentina. After attending St. Michael Seminary and Catholic University, both in Argentina, he came to the United States, where he earned a master of divinity degree and a master of arts degree in moral theology from Mount St. 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.

His pastoral assignments in the Archdiocese of Washington have included serving as parochial vicar at the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, Maryland, at St. Mark the Evangelist in Hyattsville, Maryland, and at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Maryland.

He also was administrator at Ascension Catholic Church in Bowie, Maryland, and has been an adjunct professor of canon law and adjunct spiritual director at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Besides serving on the archdiocese’s Metropolitan Tribunal, Bishop-designate Esposito-Garcia also served on the archdiocesan Seminary Admission Committee, has been an instructor for the marriage preparation program and was a member of the Committee for the Archdiocesan Synod.

He speaks English, Spanish and Italian. He is thought to be the first native of Argentina named to be a bishop in the United States.

Born Aug. 14, 1970, Bishop-designate Menjivar-Ayala is believed to be the first bishop for the United States who is a native of El Salvador.

The bishop-designate attended St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami and the Pontifical North American College in Rome before his ordination as a priest of the Washington Archdiocese.

His assignments have included posts as parochial vicar at Mother Seton Parish in Germantown, Maryland, at St. Bartholomew Parish in Bethesda, Maryland and at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. He also has been administrator at Our Lady Queen of the Americas Parish, also in Washington.

He speaks English, Spanish and Italian.

The Archdiocese of Washington is home to more than 667,000 Catholics, 139 parishes and 90 Catholic schools in the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.