Pope Leo XIV has appointed Mexican-American media executive Maria Montserrat Alvarado as the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, making her the first laywoman to lead a Vatican ministry.
Alvarado, 39, will also become the first non-Italian to oversee the department responsible for the Vatican’s television, radio, print operations and press office. She is expected to officially assume office this week.
The appointment, announced in June, has been described by analysts as a significant indication of the pontiff’s approach to women in senior Church positions, where nuns have traditionally occupied prominent roles.
Alvarado, popularly known as “Montse,” said she was surprised by the appointment, explaining that she did not go through a conventional recruitment process.
“I didn’t apply; I wasn’t chosen” through a standard application process, she said in a television interview with US Catholic media outlet EWTN News, where she served as president and chief operating officer from 2023.
“It was “an appointment from the Holy Father,” US-born Pope Leo XIV, she said.
Before joining EWTN News, Alvarado spent 14 years working at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm focused on defending religious freedom.
Born in Mexico, she moved to the United States as a child and grew up in Miami before relocating to Washington for her studies.
At EWTN News, she supervised international media platforms producing content in seven languages across television, radio, print, digital media and social networks.
The network, operated by the Eternal Word Television Network, is the largest Catholic television network in the United States and has been associated with conservative Catholic views.
Some of its programmes were known for criticising Pope Francis, Leo’s predecessor, whose reform agenda drew opposition from sections of the Church’s conservative wing, particularly in the United States.
In 2021, Francis appeared to criticise the network, lamenting a “major Catholic television channel that is constantly criticising the pope.”
“I may personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the Church does not deserve this; it is the work of the devil,” he said.
Alvarado was a presenter at EWTN at the time.
Alvarado succeeds Paolo Ruffini, 70, who was appointed to the position by Pope Francis in 2018 and became the first layperson to head a Vatican dicastery.
Lucetta Scaraffia, founder of the Vatican women’s magazine Women Church World and a professor of history at Rome’s La Sapienza University, described Alvarado’s appointment as a recognition of her professional abilities.
“This is a woman who has been chosen for her skills and her qualities,” she told AFP.
Scaraffia said Alvarado’s status as the first non-Italian to lead the department could bring a more international perspective to its operations.
As the first non-Italian to occupy the post, Alvarado “will have another way of dealing with things” and a “much more international” outlook, Scaraffia said.
“She is a highly accomplished communications manager” who “has built this career for herself,” and her appointment signals that “the pope has a different attitude towards women,” she said.
“Until now, the women chosen for important positions were highly obedient nuns — they weren’t really chosen for their merits,” Scaraffia said.
