On Tuesday, Leo XIV named EWTN News President and COO Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado the new head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication.
The unprecedented appointment follows Leo’s previous elevation of women in leadership roles, most notably his placing Italian nun Sr. Raffaella Petrini as head of Vatican City State.
Dissident influencers Austen Ivereigh and Rich Raho have defended Alvarado’s promotion. Jesuit James Martin observed that it “marks a major step forward in woman’s [sic] leadership roles in the church.”
Who is Monste Alvarado?
Born in Mexico City in 1986, Alvarado became a US citizen in 2008. She earned a degree in political science from Florida International University and a master’s in political management from George Washington University. She currently sits on the Board of Directors at Benedictine College, the Given Fund, and the libertarian, “Judeo-Christian” Acton Institute. The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition has described her as a “defender of all religion.”
In 2009, Alvarado started working for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit law firm that claims all “religious communities, institutions, and schools have the right to live, teach, and organize according to the dictates of their faith.” In 2017, Alvarado was named the group’s executive director.
Alvarado joined EWTN as a news anchor in 2021, after which she was quickly named President and Chief Operating Officer in 2023. During a 2024 interview with Peter Herbeck of Renewal Ministries, she revealed that she obtained an annulment for a previous marriage.
Connections to Opus Dei and the DC Catholic world
In 2019, Alvarado delivered remarks at an event organized by the Catholic Information Center (CIC) in Washington, D.C. The CIC is an official project of Opus Dei.
During her speech, Alvarado identified herself as a “new board member” of the CIC while praising Opus Dei founder Fr. Josemaría Escrivá. Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley, who emceed the event, welcomed her to the stage.
Like other speakers, Alvarado extolled the work of Princeton Professor Robert George, who was receiving an award named after John Paul II. In his 2001 book Clash of Orthodoxies, George — who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations — defended Liberal Catholicism, belittling pre-Vatican II teachings on the subject.
George’s wife is Jewish and his connections to and support for Jewish causes is widely known. Alvarado praised his efforts in her remarks, stating that the presence of Jewish Rabbi Meir Soloveichik at the dinner was a “perfect tribute to Robby’s work.”
The Dispatch
Like Professor George, Alvarado has spoken at philosemitic Catholic events. In October 2023, she joined Zionist Catholics at a conference hosted at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. Fellow participants included National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, author Sohrab Ahmari, and Simone Rizkallah.
During an in interview with Rizkallah in 2022, Alvarado expressed opposition to the traditional Catholic teaching on what she labeled “supercessionism,” characterizing it as “this idea that all Jews should become Christians, which obviously is wrong.”
Snippets from Alvarado’s conversation with Rizkallah have caught the attention of several Catholic influencers. In one segment, Alvarado says that she discovered how “beautiful” Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate document was thanks to a Jewish friend while visiting the Holy Land “in partnership with the Philos Project.”
As previously reported by Integrity, the Philos Project is a now-defunct initiative launched with funding from Jewish billionaire and ardent Zionist, Paul Singer. Rizkallah was affiliated with the group in the past but now heads the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism (CCAA), which organized a philosemitic conference in April at Benedictine, prompting some students to speak out against what they called “Jewish supremacy.”
Rizkallah’s organization has published a social media post congratulating Alvarado on her new role, noting that she was a founding member of the CCAA.
Elsewhere in the interview, Alvarado reveals her admiration for obsolete Jewish ceremonies. In one segment, she spoke glowingly about Jewish “Shabbat” dinners, which are held on Fridays. Alvarado described its prayers as “beautiful,” “wonderful,” and “super feminist” because, among other things, a husband praises “his wife for a good fifteen minutes.”
Alvarado also blamed “men” in the Vatican for Francis’ remarks being misconstrued by the press, claiming that women “have a tendency to see the world through clearer eyes … and with better intentions.”
Leo has repeatedly made overtures to Jewish groups and denounced “anti-Semitism” without defining the term since the 2025 conclave. On the day of his election, he sent a letter to Rabbi Noam Marans, Director of Interreligious Affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), expressing his desire to “continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate.”
In appointing Alvarado, Leo seems to be fulfilling that pledge.
