Maria Montserrat Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, will become the first laywoman to lead a Vatican dicastery after Pope Leo XIV appointed her prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. Source: EWTN News.
Since 2023, Ms Alvarado has overseen EWTN News’s global and multilingual news operations across television, radio, print, digital, and social media platforms.
During her tenure, she helped expand the network’s international news presence and deepen collaboration across its multilingual platforms.
Before joining EWTN, Ms Alvarado spent 14 years in leadership roles at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where she worked extensively on issues related to religious freedom and human dignity.
In a statement released following the appointment, Ms Alvarado said she received the news “with deep gratitude, humility, and trust in the Lord,” adding that the faithful witness of the EWTN family strengthened her faith.
The Dicastery for Communication was established by Pope Francis in 2015 as part of his reform of the Roman Curia, bringing together the Holy See’s various communications entities, including Vatican News, Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Media, the Vatican Publishing house and printing press, Filmoteca Vaticana (the Vatican Film Library), and the Holy See Press Office.
Appointed for a five-year term, the prefect is responsible for overseeing the entire media network of the Holy See.
Ms Alvarado succeeds Paolo Ruffini, appointed by Pope Francis in 2018 as the first lay prefect of a dicastery in the Roman Curia.
Mr Ruffini said he had come to know Ms Alvarado “over the last couple of years” and will work closely with her in the coming months “in the spirit of communion that unites us in the Church”.
In recent years, Pope Francis entrusted a growing number of leadership roles in the Vatican to the lay men and women, and several senior appointments for women religious.
Ms Alvarado’s appointment, effective November 1, continues that development and marks the first time a woman who has not taken religious vows has been appointed to lead a dicastery of the Holy See.
FULL STORY
Pope Leo XIV appoints EWTN News president to lead Vatican communications department (EWTN News)
RELATED COVERAGE
Pope Leo XIV appoints lay woman Prefect of Dicastery for Communication (Vatican News)
