The Holy See's New Voice

I found out about the appointment through a WhatsApp group, which is the channel through which news from the Holy See reaches us here in Rome immediately. “A woman, Mexican, under forty, and a leading expert in church communications”, ,“ the emissary summarized. Starting in November, Montserrat Alvarado will head the Dicastery for Communication: the first layperson to lead a Vatican ”ministry” and the youngest prefect to date. I recalled that Joaquín Navarro-Valls At the time, he proposed being replaced by a laywoman. 

He himself recounted that, in 1993, a British journalist reported that John Paul II had, at most, four years left to live. The spokesperson stepped in and said, with that fencer’s elegance of his: “”Sometimes news stories are published that reflect the writer's wishes more than they do reality.". And reality—which is never short on irony—decreed that the prophet would die two years later, while the terminally ill man would live on for twelve more years. That, too, is what communicating the faith is all about: reconciling hopes with reality—and always with a smile. 

Now Navarro-Valls's wish is coming true fact. The Vatican has entrusted its voice to a layperson, born in Mexico and bearing a Catalan Marian name. To me, she seems to be an extraordinary embodiment of Catholicism. The Church is not seeking propaganda; it seeks a simultaneous translation of the Gospel, and for that, it needs someone who, in addition to speaking several languages, speaks the language that allows people to hear its message.

The rest is revealed by etymology, which is the theology of the humble: “communication” belongs to the family of “communion.” When the latter is missing, the former becomes mere noise. Alvarado’s challenge is formidable, but the task remains the same as always: that the best news in history continues to arrive at the right time—even in a WhatsApp group.