Marvelous Montse!: A Chicagoan Pope Names a Mexican-Born Daughter of the Church to Lead Communications at the Vatican 

Everything you ever needed to know about Pope Leo — but were either afraid to or didn’t even think to begin to ask — we learned today. He appointed Maria Montserrat Alvarado to be prefect of the Vatican dicastery of communications.  

Montse, as she is most commonly known, is a laywoman. From the United States. Born in Mexico. Speaks Spanish fluently — and not like one of us ugly Americans!  

As has been noted, she has not only worked at the Becket Fund, that bulwark of religious liberty founded by Seamus Hasson (made possible by his beautiful marriage to Mary Rice Hasson, a testament to lay collaboration and unity in the sacrament of marriage). She has also been president for news at EWTN, started by Mother Angelica, a consecrated woman religious who pulled off what the body of Catholic bishops in the U.S. couldn’t — not only a national, but global news network. I remember interviewing Mother Angelica and her heart for making sure the Gospel could be communicated everywhere, to everyone — including, if not especially, those in tyrannical regimes like Communist China.  

Montse succeeded our late friend, Andrew Walther, in the job at EWTN, whose dedication to the persecuted church knew no bounds. Both Montse and Andrew share a deep devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe — a devotion to the mother of God that fuels and sustains any and all efforts at a culture of life and civilization of love, especially in the way of the brutality of secularism, infanticide, and the perverse misogyny that is pro-abortion feminism.  

The late (great) Kate O’Beirne, who was a longtime editor at this magazine, once wrote a book called Women Who Make the World Worse, which was precisely about that misogyny in the name of women’s rights. Montse, like Mary Hasson and Kate herself, are the alternative: Women living life for love of others, lit by the light of Christ, with joy, in a freedom to love men for all the gifts they are. Each in her own vocation, in her own roles, with her own temperament and with the gifts God gave her — they operate (and operated) behind the scenes even more powerfully than what we see out in the open (which is saying something, because what you see is impressive).  

There are many hot takes on the Vatican appointment — Montse’s first day on the job is All Saints’ Day, November 1. These are some of my observations: It is a brilliant move. The woman loves Jesus. Montse can operate in any room — whether with young women she’s mentoring or desperate women she’s walking with or suave politicians or princes of the church. She sees each one with their uniqueness from God, and also equal at the altar rail, so to speak — all human creations of the one God of the universe.  

She is what young people find attractive about the church: beautiful and lovely, confident and humble. She’s backed by centuries of truth, because she believes in the eternal life the church has taught her to live her life for.  

She knows very many people — and many you might be surprised she does. She knows what does and does not work. She doesn’t waste time. She’s tremendous fun.  

She’s real and the real deal.  

If you think the Catholic Church is or should be a significant force in the world, to heal and change hearts and support and inspire the good and the beautiful — or anything along those lines — please do us all a favor and pray for Montse Alvarado. This is one of those impossible jobs — maybe every important job in the world is, because of original sin — and your prayers for her success in following the will of the Lord is of everyone’s benefit.  

Her life truly is the Eucharist. I tell you that as someone who has had more than a few conversations with her over the years about the kinds of things that really matter (by which I don’t mean politics in the church or otherwise — although we’ve certainly had those, too). This appointment marks another shift in the church away from left vs. right faux ideological divides. Montse is Catholic because of Truth, which is God. The only reason she cares about politics and media is people, made in the image and likeness of God.

If you see Becket and EWTN and expect the rise of right-wing America in the Vatican because of this appointment, you don’t get Leo yet, and you certainly don’t get Montse.  

Come, Holy Spirit. It’s what Francis prayed — trusting that the Holy Spirit would make some sense of the mess of sometimes-nefarious divisions in the church. It’s what the first U.S.-born pope says he prayed when it became clear how that last papal conclave was moving — in the direction of naming him pope. It’s what Montse, no doubt, would appreciate you praying that she is always guided by.  

And: If you know nothing else about Montse Alvarado, know she advises: Our daily “joy comes from knowing that we can live on tomorrow’s joy today.”

Doesn’t that sound better than dragging along, doomscrolling?

I wrote a little about her talk to the women of the Knights of Columbus last summer in Washington, D.C. here. If you have a young Christian woman in your life, I’d recommend you share with her Montse’s talk to GIVEN in 2024, a forum for young Catholic women. And her wisdom can be used and appreciated by any of us.

During it, Montse said, in part:

We are in the midst of revival in our Church

Can you feel it? . . .

Not only in the United States, but around the world. . . .

What is this revival calling us to do?

It’s calling us to turn our gaze toward the eternal and the transcendent and to do something.

The Revival isn’t a moment in time. It is an intangible movement of hearts being called home as well as a physical movement of bodies bringing Christ Himself to the streets of this country.

Why does this matter?

Because it’s not about if or when we respond to the world. It’s about how we do it. If we do it from a place of relationship with Christ — deep relationship with Christ — fed by the only nourishment that can turn our ordinary bodies into members of one eternal Body, we will know how to respond to the confusion of the world.

Reflecting on the feminine in a talk that later talked about the complementary gifts of men and women, Montse said:  “I experience the Church as mother. . . . And I understand what it means to take things deeply into my heart and ponder them as our Blessed Mother did and as our Church does and in her femininity.” Our call, she told the women: is “to discern the poverty of our age and respond with courage and clarity.”

“Love,” she said, “means confronting the truth — as ugly and as difficult as it may be — in humility, and recognizing God’s reign over all, to achieve true repentance and live freely.”

To the young women, she said:

You are a gift to be received. But you are the first person who needs to learn to receive that gift — and love her as Christ loves her. You are the first one who needs to accept the love of Christ truly and to give of yourself from a place of abundance, so that at the sound of the name of Jesus Christ your heart leaps and a smile crosses your face because no greater love has ever existed. From there — and only from there — can you share the joy and the love of Christ with others. . . .

You may be aware that I am close to a community of Catholic religious sisters called the Sisters of Life. Their charism is to help people believe this about themselves — that you are loved. That you were loved into creation. I’m sorry, but no brilliant pro-life strategy works — or will ever work — if this is not conveyed. Until people not only are convinced but begin to have a clue that this may be true.

“There are no coincidences,” Alvarado told the young women. “You have a purpose. Your decisions have meaning.”

Goodness, does that need to be said to young men today, too!

She implored:

Women of the Church: Be human. You cannot evangelize by avoiding the world and avoiding pain and suffering. Our humanity is God’s gift to us. Be human. Every single part of our being — the way we look, what we find interesting or funny, the way we see the world — is unique. And it’s meant to be courageously experienced and shared. The Ten Commandments, the two great commandments, and the Beatitudes — they were all given to us to guide our lives and give us freedom.

Montse encouraged them to:

make mistakes. Make so many mistakes! Rejoice in conversion. Fearlessly beg for forgiveness and rejoice in the miraculous restoration of the sacrament of Confession.

Do not be afraid of the world. Love. Hurt. Give. Question.

Live free lives that reflect the love of Christ — for us.

“Women of the Church,” she said, “you get to be a part of the Church’s mission.” She pointed out how honored we are — He doesn’t need us, He wants us.

You can watch/listen to her 2024 talk here:

In her statement today, Montse said:

I was recently told by a dear friend to thank God for the doors that open that we never knock on. . . . While this appointment was unexpected, I receive it with a sincere desire to serve the Holy Father as he begins his pontificate.

At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV asked journalists and communicators to never separate the search for truth from the love with which we must humbly seek it, and to preserve human faces and voices which are God’s indelible mark on our humanity in each of us. It is with this understanding of our vocation as communicators that I receive this appointment with deep gratitude, humility, and trust in the Lord.

I hope this appointment is a shot in the arm for GIVEN among so many others, a source of encouragement and inspiration for women and men who love them. Including for women who have been laboring for decades, living the legacy of the likes of stalwarts of the faith like Mother Cabrini and Elizabeth Ann Seton — and Mother Angelica.

And pray we can all give ourselves permission to be human — to be needy, to know our poverty. That’s when we will see God’s best work done! Montse Alvarado knows this all too well and so rejoices in the adventure of life because she knows, as did Mother Angelica, Cabrini, and the Blessed Mother before her, that she is never alone.