Pope Leon XIV appointed, on Tuesday, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a lay woman, Maria Montserrat Alvarado, to lead a Vatican ministry.
Originally from Ciudad de Mexico, Maria Montserrat Alvarado, current president of the Catholic media conglomerate EWTN News, will assume the role of „Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication” on November 1, as announced by the Vatican press office in a statement.
Maria Montserrat Alvarado, who studied in the United States, „is the first non-religious woman to be appointed prefect of a dicastery of the Holy See,” according to the same statement cited by AFP and Reuters.
With this appointment, Pope Leon XIV "continues the process of reform and renewal of the Roman Curia (the government of the Vatican - ed.) initiated by Pope Francis," the Vatican emphasizes.
The Dicastery for Communication coordinates the extensive written, radio, and television press services of the Vatican, directed towards an international audience.
Maria Montserrat Alvarado, President and Chief Operating Officer of EWTN News since 2023, will succeed Paolo Ruffini, who has held this position since 2018 and is retiring.
The EWTN television network - The Eternal Word Television Network - was founded by a nun named Mother Angelica in 1981, but later evolved into a global media conglomerate, with nearly a dozen television stations, a book publishing division, a newspaper, and an affiliated radio station.
EWTN often caters to conservative Catholics in the United States. President Donald Trump has appeared multiple times on the network, and one of its top presenters is a Fox News contributor.
This media network has occasionally criticized the late Pope Francis, who complained that EWTN "speaks ill of him."
At the beginning of 2025, Pope Francis appointed for the first time a woman, nun Simona Brambilla, to lead a Vatican ministry, marking a milestone in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church.
Simona Brambilla took over the leadership of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which is the Curia's ministry responsible for religious orders and congregations.
And nun Raffaella Petrini then assumed, in March 2025, the leadership of the Governorate of Vatican City State, which exercises the executive power of the Holy See under its authority.
Pope Francis, who passed away in April 2025, called for overcoming the macho mentality within the Catholic Church, which does not entrust "enough positions of responsibility" to the nuns. He insisted that they should not be treated as servants.