A 39-year-old woman born in Mexico City and raised in the United States has become the Vatican’s new communications chief — the first laywoman to lead a ministry-level department in the church’s central administration.
María Montserrat Alvarado, whose appointment took effect Sunday, previously served as president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, the news division of the largest Catholic television network in the United States.
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She succeeds Italian journalist Paolo Ruffini, 70, as prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.
Pope Leo XIV, hailed by Mexico when he was elected, announced her appointment in June.
Alvarado takes over an operation encompassing Vatican News, Vatican Radio, the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and the Holy See Press Office, along with publishing, television, photography and other services.
“It’s enormous,” she told EWTN News.
Alvarado, who goes by the nickname Montse, said she was about 7 or 8 when her family moved from Mexico to the United States. She grew up in Miami and holds Mexican and U.S. citizenship, according to AFP.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida International University, she moved to Washington, D.C., to study for a master’s in political management from George Washington University.
In 2009, she joined the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm that handles religious freedom cases. She started in communications and rose to vice president and executive director in 2017.
Her work included advocating for Becket’s clients in the media, including Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español and EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network).
In 2021, she joined EWTN as the founding host of “EWTN News In Depth,” a weekly program. Two years later, she was named president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, overseeing its global, multilingual news operations across television, radio, print, digital platforms and social media — work that brought her into direct contact with Pope Leo XIV and Vatican officials.
She helped prepare the Pope’s live video conversation with young people attending a National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis last year, and also worked with the Vatican on a video introducing the Pope’s first encyclical.
Leo later approached her about leading the department, she said. Though she had not applied, Alvarado said she believed Leo wanted a professional equipped to bridge traditional and digital communications.
“In no way am I imposing a vision,” she said. “I’m very much receiving one and executing it.”
Her appointment comes after years of friction between the conservative Catholic network and Pope Francis. Some EWTN programs criticized Francis, who publicly complained about an unnamed Catholic television network’s attacks on him.
Former Francis collaborators told BBC Mundo that tensions had largely eased after Alvarado took charge of the news operation.
Alvarado is not the first Mexican or woman to lead a Vatican department. Mexican Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán headed its health care department from 1996 to 2009, and Italian Sister Simona Brambilla has overseen religious orders since January 2025.
