A Laywoman Takes the Helm of Vatican Communications

Maria Montserrat Alvarado, a 39-year-old American media executive, becomes the head of Vatican communications this week, CBS News reported, making her the first laywoman to lead a Vatican ministry. The post puts a woman who is neither a cleric nor a member of a religious order at the head of the Holy See's press, radio and online operation, an office that addresses the press corps in Rome and Catholics worldwide.

CBS described the post as a Vatican ministry and identified Alvarado as a media executive rather than a career official of the Holy See. The network gave no detail of her brief, her term or the terms of the appointment, and did not say whom she succeeds.

The Vatican's press office, radio, newspaper and digital services were consolidated into a single communications dicastery in a reform begun in the mid-2010s, presented at the time as a way of ending duplication among outlets that each carried their own costs. The head of that dicastery reports to the pope, and the job is watched by foreign correspondents accredited to the Holy See for what it signals about how this papacy wants to be covered.