Maria Alvarado, a 39-year-old US media executive, becomes the new head of Vatican communications this week, the first laywoman to head a Vatican \u201cministry.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The Mexican-American will also be the first non-Italian to lead a vast department overseeing all of the Vatican\u2019s television, radio and print operations, as well as its press office.\n<\/p>\n
Analysts say that the appointment of a professional woman to the key post signals that Pope Leo views women differently from his predecessors at the Vatican, where nuns have tended to be the women holding senior positions.\n<\/p>\n
Her appointment, announced in June, came as a surprise even to Alvarado.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t apply; I wasn\u2019t chosen\u201d through a standard application process, she said in a television interview with US Catholic media outlet EWTN News, where she has served as president and chief operating officer since 2023.\n<\/p>\n
It was \u201can appointment from the Holy Father,\u201d US-born Pope Leo XIV, said Alvarado, who uses the name \u201cMontse.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
EWTN News is the news division of the Eternal Word Television Network, the largest Catholic television network in the United States, which was founded by a nun and has established itself as a touchstone for conservative Catholics.<\/p>\n
It has not always had a warm relationship with the Vatican.<\/p>\n
Certain programmes on the network developed a reputation for their criticism of Leo\u2019s Argentine predecessor, Pope Francis, a reform-minded pontiff who angered some within the Church\u2019s conservative wing, particularly in the US.\n<\/p>\n
In 2021, Francis appeared to call them out on it, bemoaning a \u201cmajor Catholic television channel that is constantly criticising the pope.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI may personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the Church does not deserve this; it is the work of the devil,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Alvarado was a presenter for EWTN at that time.\n<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018More international\u2019 \u2013<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n Born in Mexico, Alvarado arrived in the US as a child and grew up in Miami before moving to Washington to pursue her studies.<\/p>\n For 14 years, Alvarado worked at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm that defends religious freedom.\n<\/p>\n At the helm of EWTN News since 2023, she oversaw international media platforms that produced content in seven languages across television, print, radio, digital media and social networks.\n<\/p>\n Alvarado had not planned on a career in media and communications, telling EWTN that her \u201cgreat ambition had always been to get married and have children.\u201d\n<\/p>\n She was married, but is now divorced, and the union has since been annulled by the Church.\n<\/p>\n Alvarado succeeds 70-year-old Paolo Ruffini, who was appointed by Pope Francis in 2018 and was the first layperson to lead a dicastery, the Vatican term for a ministry.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a woman who has been chosen for her skills and her qualities,\u201d Lucetta Scaraffia, the founder of the Vatican\u2019s women\u2019s magazine \u201cWomen Church World\u201d and a professor of history at Rome\u2019s La Sapienza University, told AFP.\n<\/p>\n As the first non-Italian to occupy the post, Alvarado \u201cwill have another way of dealing with things\u201d and a \u201cmuch more international\u201d outlook, Scaraffia said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is a highly accomplished communications manager\u201d who \u201chas built this career for herself,\u201d and her appointment signals that \u201cthe pope has a different attitude towards women,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cUntil now, the women chosen for important positions were highly obedient nuns \u2014 they weren\u2019t really chosen for their merits,\u201d Scaraffia said.\n<\/p>\n AFP\n <\/p>\n Source: <\/p>\n Maria Alvarado, a 39-year-old US media executive, becomes the new head of Vatican communications this week, the first laywoman to head a Vatican \u201cministry.\u201d The Mexican-American will also be the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}