Another Vatican appointment for Montse Alvarado: Leo XIV puts the future head of Vatican communications on the board of his new “Fratello Sole” Foundation - even as her digital record at EWTN offers little to celebrate.
Today, Leo XIV appointed Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado as a member of the Board of Directors of the Vatican’s newly established Fratello Sole Foundation. She becomes the third member of its three-person governing board.
Alvarado is due to take office as Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication on November 1. She is divorced and received a Church annulment of her marriage. She is not a theologian and has attracted attention for arguing in 2022 that Jews should not be converted to Christianity.
Women Taking Over the Vatican
Leo XIV established the Fratello Sole Foundation in June to oversee an agrivoltaic project intended ultimately to meet the electricity needs of Vatican City State.
The three-member board now consists of:
- Sister Raffaella Petrini, President of the Foundation, because she is President of the Governorate of Vatican City State.
- Archbishop Giordano Piccinotti, Vice-President, because he is President of APSA.
- Maria Montserrat Alvarado, the third member appointed by the Pope.
From EWTN’s Digital Flop to the Vatican
The appointment puts renewed focus on Alvarado’s digital record at EWTN.
She was tasked with bringing order to a sprawling collection of news websites and brands acquired and developed over the years. In January, EwtnNews.com was launched as a global platform bringing Catholic News Agency and other operations under one digital umbrella.
Seven months later, the numbers appear sobering. According to Cloudflare Radar, EwtnNews.com does not rank among the world’s 100,000 most popular domains.
More strikingly, the available data suggest that the new platform has so far failed to match the digital reach previously achieved by CatholicNewsAgency.com alone.
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