Alvarado, predecessor react to appointment as prefect of Dicastery for Communication

June 03, 2026

Maria Montserrat (Montse) Alvarado said she was surprised by Pope Leo’s decision to appoint her as prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.

“I was recently told by a dear friend to thank God for the doors that open that we never knock on,” Alvarado said in a statement. “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,” she continued. “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 am grateful to Paolo Ruffini for his leadership throughout the last years and look forward to continuing, in friendship and hope, the important work of strengthening the dicastery so it may continue to serve the Church in Rome and everywhere to communicate Christ to the world,” she added.

Ruffini, the layman who has led the dicastery since 2018, said in a letter to dicastery staff:

The Dicastery has embedded in its very DNA the duty to remain constantly attuned to the rapidly changing world of communication. From the moment we were born as an institution, our guiding star has been and remains this: never to stop, to pass the baton while continuing to run, to be present in the here and now, in this very hour, as the touchstone of a communication that is the instrument of a communion that grows over time.

I have entered the final lap of the race, before the moment when—in the long journey that is our working life—having reached the age of 70, the age set for retirement, I will pass the baton to Montserrat Alvarado as the next prefect. We know each other well. And in the coming months, we will work closely together, in the spirit of communion that unites us in the Church.

“I am grateful to the big family of Dicastery for the journey we have taken together over these eight years,” he added. “We are beginning now the process over the coming months for a smooth transition in order to help the Dicastery continue to grow in service to the Holy Father and in its mission of serving in a spirit of unity and openness.”

 

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Further information:

• Pope Leo XIV appoints lay woman Prefect of Dicastery for Communication (Vatican News, 6/2/26)
• Pope Leo XIV names EWTN's Montse Alvarado as prefect of Vatican Dicastery for Communication (OSV News, 6/2/26)
• Pope Leo names EWTN News president as prefect of Dicastery for Communication (CWN, 6/2/26)