‘It’s what I’m called to do’: Montse Alvarado on her new Vatican role
Montse Alvarado is set to become prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication on Nov. 1, making her the first laywoman to lead a Holy See dicastery. In an interview, Alvarado reflected on her career, vocation, and the prayer and personal challenges involved in accepting the appointment, including moving to a new country and learning a new language. Before her Vatican appointment, Alvarado led EWTN News and spent 14 years working on religious-liberty issues at the Becket Fund. She said her experience with both traditional and digital communications, along with EWTN’s collaborations with the Holy See, helped prepare her for the new role.
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Montse Alvarado is due to become prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication on Nov. 1, making her the first laywoman to hold that post. In an interview, she described the appointment as a vocation she accepted after prayer, and said her immediate task is to listen to Pope Leo XIV and carry out his communications priorities. 1 3
Alvarado will move from leading EWTN News to overseeing the Holy See’s communications operations. She said she believes the pope was seeking a professional suited to a moment when digital and traditional media are converging. 1 3
The role makes Alvarado the first woman with a lay vocation to serve as prefect of the dicastery. She noted that women religious have held prefect-level positions and that her predecessor was a layman. 3
Alvarado joined EWTN in 2021 as the founding host of EWTN News In Depth and became president and chief operating officer of EWTN News in 2023, leading its international and multilingual work across television, radio, print and digital platforms. Before that, she spent 14 years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, working on religious-freedom and human-dignity issues. 1 3
Born in Mexico City, she moved to the United States as a child, studied music and served in her church. She said she had not planned a career in media, describing the distinction between personal ambition and vocation this way: “No, but it’s what I’m called to do.” 3
Her connections with the Vatican grew through EWTN’s work with the Holy See, including a live dialogue with young people in Indianapolis in 2025 and collaboration on a video related to Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. Alvarado said those projects gave her the opportunity to meet the pope and learn about the Vatican’s communications operations. 1 3
The dicastery’s responsibilities span Vatican News and Vatican Media, Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano, the Holy See Press Office, and the Vatican’s publishing, printing, internet and photography services. Alvarado called the portfolio “enormous” and said the dicastery’s mandate is to communicate Christ to the world in concert with the pope. 1 3
She said she is not entering the job with a fixed agenda: her role, she explained, is to discern the pope’s priorities and execute them in service of the Church and the Curia. She described an initial period of listening and assessment, saying that understanding the people and context behind decisions should inform what comes next. 3
Alvarado also identified adapting communications to changing media habits as an important challenge. She said her technology-focused background has led her to favor multichannel journalism and the use of analytics to understand the needs of the Church and communicate them to local bishops’ conferences. 3
Alvarado said accepting the appointment required prayer because it entails moving to a new country, learning a new language and leaving her existing life behind. She called the decision humbling and said she has relied on colleagues, mentors and community throughout her career. 1 3
She also addressed criticism and assumptions about her beliefs following the appointment, saying that her service is grounded in Church teaching and that her Catholic identity takes precedence over political affiliation. She said she expects to encounter the Church’s human realities with faith, rather than see them as a threat to it. 3
Lay participation in Church governance and mission of evangelization
Lay participation in Church governance and evangelization is not an optional concession but a consequence of Baptism and Confirmation. The Church’s mission belongs to the whole People of God, though lay people and ordained ministers serve it in different ways. Lay participation includes contributing to pastoral discernment and, where Church law permits, cooperating in governance; its distinctive missionary expression is often to bring the Gospel into family life, work, culture, public affairs, and other parts of society.
The Church’s mission is one: to proclaim Christ and serve the work of salvation. The laity participate in it by virtue of their baptismal incorporation into Christ, not merely because clergy delegate tasks to them. Vatican II describes lay apostolate as participation in the Church’s own saving mission, and says that the laity are especially called to make the Church present in places and circumstances where only through them can it be the “salt of the earth.”
This shared mission does not erase the distinction between lay and ordained vocations. Priests and bishops have responsibilities proper to their ordained ministry, including pastoral leadership; lay people contribute their own gifts, experience, and competence. Pope Francis accordingly states that ordained ministers are not the Church’s sole evangelizers, and that lay women and men should be involved even in roles of responsibility and governance.
Participation, then, is neither a replacement of pastors by lay people nor a model in which every Church decision is made by popular vote. It is collaboration within the Church’s ordered life: pastors exercise their ministry of leadership, while lay faithful contribute to discernment and mission according to their vocation, abilities, and the norms of Church law.
The Catechism teaches that lay faithful can “cooperate in the exercise” of the Church’s power of governance “in accord with the norm of law.” It points to participation in councils and synods, pastoral and finance councils, parish pastoral care in particular circumstances, and ecclesiastical tribunals.
That cooperation can take several forms. Lay people may offer counsel in pastoral bodies, help assess the needs of a parish or diocese, bring professional expertise to financial administration, or serve in certain judicial or administrative roles when the law permits. The specific legal qualifications and authority attached to each office differ; participation in a consultative council, for example, is not the same as holding an office with decision-making authority. A scholarly survey of the Code likewise identifies consultative bodies and certain administrative and judicial offices as possible areas of lay participation, while emphasizing that these roles operate within the Church’s legal framework.
This participation is valuable not simply because it distributes work. Lay people can bring knowledge of family life, professional practice, social conditions, and the effects of Church decisions in everyday settings. Pope Francis notes that their engagement in society and family life can help the Church recognize God’s action in the world and discern the “signs of the times.”
The laity’s missionary work is not confined to parish activities. Their particular vocation places them amid the world’s ordinary realities, where they can bring Christian judgment and witness to settings that clergy may not regularly reach. Evangelii Nuntiandi identifies politics, society, economics, culture, science, the arts, media, family life, education, professional work, and suffering as fields open to evangelization. The aim is not to make these realities less human, but to let the Gospel illuminate and renew them.
This means that a lay Catholic’s work as a parent, teacher, health-care worker, public servant, businessperson, artist, or neighbor can be part of the Church’s mission. Such witness includes both conduct and speech: acting with honesty, justice, charity, and respect for human life, and being prepared to explain the hope and moral convictions that guide those actions. Benedict XVI stresses that the lay witness is often especially effective because it is lived in daily settings and areas that may be difficult for priests to access.
The Church’s mission also includes direct service within the community: charity, catechesis, preparation for the sacraments, and other pastoral ministries. Pope Francis recognizes these as important forms of lay service, while warning that participation can become too narrowly focused on internal Church tasks if it does not also bring Christian values into social, political, and economic life.
Lay responsibility requires formation. The Church should help lay people grow in Scripture, doctrine, prayer, moral discernment, and the skills needed for particular responsibilities. John Paul II urged bishops to recognize the laity’s charisms and enable them to carry out their apostolate, while Benedict XVI emphasized the need for lay people to be formed to meet contemporary challenges with the truth of Christ, not merely with worldly competence.
But formation alone is not enough: lay people must also have genuine opportunities to contribute. Pope Francis identifies two obstacles that can inhibit this: inadequate formation and a failure to make room for lay people to speak and act, sometimes because of excessive clericalism. He also notes that the participation of women in Church life and mission must be taken seriously.
The responsibility is therefore shared. Lay faithful should bring informed, prayerful, and charitable contributions; pastors should listen, provide appropriate opportunities, and integrate lay gifts into the Church’s work without confusing distinct roles. John Paul II particularly called for recognition of the laity’s contribution to the Church’s unity and mission, and urged bishops to treat support for lay apostolate as a pastoral priority.
A sound approach holds together three truths:
Thus, lay participation is not measured only by how many parish committees or Church offices lay people hold. It also appears in whether the faithful are heard in appropriate processes of discernment, whether their gifts are welcomed in the Church’s life, and whether they are equipped and encouraged to live the Gospel in the places where they work, raise families, serve others, and take part in public life.