Montse Alvarado came to EWTN in 2021 as the founding host of the global Catholic network's weekly news magazine show "EWTN News In Depth." Just a few years later, in 2023, she was promoted to president and chief operating officer of EWTN News.
Now she is preparing to begin, on Nov. 1, another challenging new role, one that is taking her to the Eternal City as prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication.
In an "EWTN News In Depth" interview with Colm Flynn, Alvarado reflected on where her life has taken her so far, her vocation, and what's ahead.
Since 2023, Alvarado has led EWTN News' global and multilingual news operations across television, radio, print, digital, and social media platforms.
Before joining EWTN, she spent 14 years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where she also rose to a position of leadership and worked extensively on issues related to religious freedom and human dignity.
Born in Mexico City, Alvarado came to the United States as a young girl. She studied at Florida International University and The George Washington University, served her church, and even discerned religious life.
She shared that she's "done none of this alone" and that as she has walked into each new chapter, "there's an incredible team there to work with, mentors that are more generous than I could ever deserve."
After ending her time at Becket, she recalled "thinking about the importance of religious freedom and the Constitution and the American Dream and I said, 'Well, what's it all for if not for heaven?'"
"I looked at EWTN and Mother Angelica and she spoke to my heart. That desperate desire for people to go to heaven … and so coming in here and having an environment where I was only talking about Jesus every day and only trying to communicate him to the world was a great honor for me and my spiritual life, but also seemed like a very logical thing to do when I thought about it from a calling and spiritual perspective," she explained.
Alvarado credited Mother Angelica and EWTN for playing a major role in the lead-up to her appointment to her new position.
She explained that due to EWTN's role in collaborating with the Holy See for several large events — including Pope Leo XIV's first-ever live dialogue with young people in Indianapolis in November 2025 and EWTN's collaboration with the dicastery to create a video reflection ahead of the release of the Holy Father's first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas — she was able to meet with the pope and "get to know the inner workings."
Alvarado will be making history as she takes on this new responsibility — becoming the first laywoman appointed prefect of a dicastery of the Holy See. She said she believes she was chosen for the position because "we are in a moment where digital communications and traditional communications are coming together," and the Holy Father "was looking for a next-generation professional, that's clear, and God willing, I'll be able to fill those shoes."
When asked if her response to the Holy Father's reaching out to her about the appointment prompted an immediate yes, Alvarado admitted that it "took a little more prayer than I would care to admit."
"My entire life has been a surrender to Jesus Christ and his Church in the hopes that others would have a relationship with him. But I'm human, Colm, and moving to a new country, learning a new language, all of those pieces, leaving everything behind, they're big to overcome," she said. "And so I think it took a little more prayer than I would care to admit. I'm a little more human than I would care to admit in my willingness to say yes."
As prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, Alvarado will oversee all of the Holy See's media and communication outlets, which include Vatican News, Vatican Media, Vatican Radio, L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See Press Office, the Vatican publishing house, the Vatican internet service, the Vatican printing press, and the Vatican's photography service.
"It's enormous," Alvarado said.
"Communicating Christ to the world is the mandate of the communications dicastery, and it will be done in concert with the Holy Father … We're getting to know what this is, what it should be, what the desire of his heart is, and what the Holy Spirit has really given him as the mandate for his pontificate," she added. "And my job is to serve him and the Church and to serve the dicasteries and serve the Curia. In no way am I imposing a vision. I'm very much receiving one and executing it."
She shared that while people have been telling her that by going into the Vatican she has to be careful "because I might lose my faith seeing the humanity of the Church," that excites her and she prefers to "turn that on its head and say I'm going to see the humanity of the Church, which for me has always been an affirmation that Jesus Christ is real and his Church is the true Church. Because in seeing the way things work, I actually find that it's miraculous."
"I feel like seeing the inner workings and the reality, even overcoming my own imperfections and sinfulness, as a child of God, the fact that God could use me as an instrument for something so great is incredibly humbling."
