Maria Montserrat Alvarado, a 39-year-old Mexican American media executive, begins leading the Vatican's communications department this week. Her arrival marks two firsts: she will be the first laywoman to head a Vatican ministry and the first non-Italian to run the department responsible for its television, radio and print operations, along with its press office.
The appointment by Pope Leo XIV was announced in June and surprised Alvarado herself. Speaking in a television interview with EWTN News, where she has been president and chief operating officer since 2023, she explained that she had neither applied for the position nor been selected through a conventional application process. Alvarado also goes by the name Montse.
She takes over from Paolo Ruffini, 70, whom Pope Francis appointed in 2018. Ruffini was the first layperson to lead a dicastery, the Vatican's name for a ministry. Analysts see the selection of a professional woman for the communications post as an indication of Leo's approach to women's leadership in an institution where senior female appointees have generally been nuns.
Alvarado was born in Mexico and moved to the United States during childhood. She grew up in Miami, then relocated to Washington for her studies. Her professional experience includes 14 years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm focused on defending religious freedom. At EWTN News, she managed international operations producing material in seven languages for television, print, radio, digital outlets and social networks.
EWTN News belongs to the Eternal Word Television Network, the largest Catholic television network in the United States. Founded by a nun, the network has become an important reference point for conservative Catholics. Its relationship with the Vatican has sometimes been strained, particularly over programs critical of Francis, whose reforms drew opposition from some Church conservatives, especially in the United States.
In 2021, Francis appeared to address that criticism when he complained about a major Catholic television channel repeatedly attacking the pope. He said that while he might personally merit criticism as a sinner, the Church did not deserve such treatment. Alvarado was then working as an EWTN presenter.
Lucetta Scaraffia, founder of the Vatican women's magazine Women Church World and a history professor at Rome's La Sapienza University, told AFP that Alvarado had been selected for her abilities and personal qualities. She described her as an accomplished communications manager who had built her own career, and said her international background would bring a different perspective to the department.
Scaraffia interpreted the appointment as evidence of a different attitude toward women under Leo, contrasting it with earlier choices of nuns whom she characterized as selected for obedience rather than merit. Alvarado, meanwhile, has said that media was not her original ambition: she had hoped to marry and have children. She is divorced, and the Church has annulled her marriage.
