For the first time ever, a millennial is set to lead a Vatican department—and it’s someone we know well: Montse Alvarado.
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Maria Montserrat Alvarado, president and COO of EWTN News, as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, with her role beginning November 1.
Since 2023, Montse has led EWTN News’ global, multilingual newsroom—helping expand its international reach and deepen collaboration across TV, radio, print, digital, and social platforms at a pivotal moment for the Church’s digital mission.
As EWTN CEO Michael Warsaw put it, her leadership helped guide “a deeper engagement with the digital space,” while always staying rooted in “proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ… with clarity, fidelity, and charity.”
Before EWTN, she spent 14 years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, advocating for religious freedom and human dignity—work that continues to shape her mission today.
In her own words, Alvarado received the news “with deep gratitude, humility, and trust in the Lord,” crediting the EWTN family as a source of strength in her faith.
Alvarado will oversee the Vatican’s entire global media network—including Vatican News, Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano, and the Holy See Press Office. She succeeds Paolo Ruffini, the first lay prefect, continuing a growing movement of lay leadership in the Church, and she becomes the first woman who is not a religious sister or nun to lead a dicastery, (and the first Latina, Mexican-American woman in this role)!
EWTN, while saying goodbye, is sending her with full support: “We offer her our prayers, our encouragement… as she begins this important mission in service to the universal Church.”
Catholic Millennials and Gen Z—this is a moment to watch.
Please keep Montse in your prayers as she steps into this historic new role.