Pope Leo XIV spent some 13 hours on a flight to Uruguay on November 6, spending some of the time with the 80 journalists who accompanied him. In greeting them, he introduced Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado, the new Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication. Noting “that many of you already know” her, he praised her “wonderful experience,” “creativity,” “life and liveliness,” saying she would accompany them on the visit and help the Vatican and the Pope “in the very important dimension of communication.” Alvarado, a Mexican-American who was working at EWTN before her move to the Vatican, joins two other women who have the role of prefect of a Vatican dicastery, though both of the others are nuns. After a brief address to the group of reporters, in which he confessed that despite his October surgery and diagnosis of a cancerous nodule in his lung, he had never doubted that this demanding 12-day trip would Read More…

Pope: I am proud to be an American