'We are the Body of Christ': Catholics process through Washington in solidarity with immigrants

By Nicole Olea | Jun 9, 2026

The noonday sun shone over Columbia Heights in Northwest Washington, D.C., as people moved between corner markets and families pushed strollers past Salvadoran pupuserías, Dominican and Mexican restaurants, pho shops and fruit vendors shaded beneath bright umbrellas.

In that same neighborhood, every pew inside the Shrine of the Sacred Heart was filled June 7 as worshippers gathered beneath mosaic-covered walls where immigrants have prayed for more than a century. Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala –an auxiliary bishop of Washington whom Pope Leo XIV on May 1 appointed as the new bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia –celebrated the Spanish-language Mass for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi Sunday. Bishop-elect Emilio Biosca Agüero – Sacred Heart’s pastor whom Pope Leo on May 13 named as the new bishop of Venice, Florida –concelebrated the Mass along with priests from across the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.