Leo’s DEI Prefectress: The Revolution Gets a Victory; The Rest of Us Lose
Leo names EWTN’s Alvarado the first laywoman prefect as a Vatican bishop praises Lennon’s Imagine and Catholic schoolgirls wear hijabs at mosque visits.
The Damian Thompson Self-Own
Sometimes the joke writes itself.
When news broke that Maria Montserrat Alvarado of EWTN News had been appointed Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, many Catholics who still possess functioning memories immediately recognized what the appointment represented: another step in the ongoing transformation of the Roman Curia from a hierarchy of clerics into a managerial bureaucracy populated by lay executives.
Damian Thompson’s reaction was remarkable.
Rather than criticizing the principle of a laywoman becoming prefect, he mocked people who were upset and then reassuringly informed everyone that Alvarado “isn’t especially conservative.”
That is supposed to make traditional Catholics feel better?
Imagine the argument:
“Relax. The problem isn’t merely that a laywoman is being placed in a role historically associated with the governance of the Church. The good news is she isn’t even particularly conservative.”
One almost admires the honesty.
For years, conservative Catholics have attempted to persuade traditionalists that personnel changes matter. Francis appointed liberals. Leo would appoint conservatives. Francis was the problem. The system was fine.
Then Leo appoints a woman to head a Vatican dicastery and suddenly the argument becomes that personnel do not matter after all. The office itself is no longer important. The principle itself is no longer important.
The only thing that matters is whether the latest revolutionary happens to smile politely while carrying out the revolution. That is why Thompson’s post is so revealing. It accidentally exposes the entire game.
The Real Question Nobody Wants to Discuss
The issue is not whether Alvarado is conservative. The issue is whether a layperson should be serving as prefect at all. Historically, dicasteries were extensions of ecclesiastical governance.
The Roman Curia was not designed as a collection of nonprofit organizations managed by communications professionals and corporate executives. It was an instrument of Church government staffed by clerics exercising ecclesiastical authority under the Roman Pontiff.
Yet under Francis and now Leo, the governing assumption has shifted dramatically. Leadership is increasingly viewed as administrative rather than sacerdotal. Management replaces hierarchy. Professional credentials replace ecclesiastical office. Corporate experience replaces theological formation.
The Vatican itself openly described Alvarado’s appointment as a continuation of Francis’s reforms and his effort to place more laypeople, including women, in positions of governance. Even secular media immediately recognized the appointment as evidence that Leo intends to continue Francis’s trajectory rather than reverse it.
The argument is no longer hidden. The argument is that this is exactly where the Church should be going.
Conservatism Without Resistance
What makes this appointment especially revealing is where Alvarado comes from. She comes from EWTN. For decades EWTN functioned as the flagship institution of conservative Catholicism. Not traditional Catholicism. Conservative Catholicism.
Those are not the same thing.
Traditional Catholics spent years warning that many conservative institutions ultimately accepted the post-conciliar framework. They objected to abuses. They objected to excesses. They objected to liberalism. But they largely accepted the new ecclesiology.
The result is what we are witnessing now.
A conservative executive from a conservative media empire is elevated into a structure created by Francis’s reforms while many conservatives celebrate the appointment as a victory. But if the reform itself is harmful, then supplying better personnel to administer it does not solve the problem.
It merely baptizes it.
Meanwhile, a Vatican Bishop Is Preaching John Lennon
On the very same day Catholics were debating Leo’s latest appointment, another story emerged from the Vatican.
Bishop Antonio Staglianò, president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, publicly praised John Lennon’s Imagine as “the most beautiful song in the world.” Not only that. He explicitly declared:
“John Lennon is right.”
He then proclaimed that religion, God, and heaven should effectively be abolished if they are associated with sacrifice, combat, or martyrdom. Even more astonishingly, he attempted to place these ideas into the mouth of Christ Himself.
The implications are staggering.
For two thousand years Christians have died for God. The martyrs died for God. The Crusaders fought for Christendom. Missionaries accepted martyrdom rather than deny the Faith.
Yet the president of a Vatican theological academy now speaks as though willingness to die for God is itself the problem.
The irony is breathtaking.
Catholic history is filled with saints who died rather than offer a grain of incense to Caesar. Now a Vatican bishop appears scandalized by the very concept of dying for religious truth.
LifeSite correctly noted the obvious theological problem. The bishop’s rhetoric strongly resembles old Marcionite themes that pit the God of the Old Testament against the God revealed by Christ. The Church condemned those errors nearly two millennia ago.
Yet Staglianò remains in office. No emergency press conferences. No doctrinal investigations. No Vatican panic.
Because in the modern Church, the truly dangerous people are apparently still the Catholics attached to the old Mass.
The Schoolgirls in Hijabs
Then there is Australia.
A Catholic school sent girls to Hindu temples and mosques as part of an “Interfaith Reflection Day” inspired by Fratelli Tutti. The girls wore hijabs. They participated in Hindu activities. They were encouraged to appreciate the spiritual insights of various religions. Notice what is missing.
Conversion.
Evangelization.
Mission.
The conviction that Catholicism alone possesses the fullness of revealed truth.
Instead, the purpose appears to be mutual appreciation and religious dialogue. The practical message received by the students is unmistakable: Catholicism is one beautiful path among many beautiful paths.
Hinduism has wisdom. Islam has wisdom. Catholicism has wisdom. Everyone contributes something to the conversation. The old missionary spirit disappears. The martyrs become embarrassing. The Crusades become embarrassing. The necessity of the Church becomes embarrassing.
The result is exactly the kind of religious indifferentism that previous generations of popes repeatedly condemned.
One Story, Three Headlines
At first glance these stories seem unrelated. A woman appointed to a Vatican dicastery. A bishop praising John Lennon. Catholic schoolgirls wearing hijabs.
Yet they all emerge from the same underlying vision. The Church is increasingly presented as a facilitator rather than a teacher. A dialogue partner rather than a missionary. A communications platform rather than a divine institution entrusted with supernatural truth.
That is why Leo’s appointment matters. Not because Maria Montserrat Alvarado is uniquely dangerous, especially liberal or especially conservative.
The appointment matters because it signals continuity. The same continuity the Vatican itself openly acknowledges. Francis restructured the Curia. Francis normalized lay governance. Francis elevated women into positions previously reserved for clerics. Francis emphasized dialogue, accompaniment, and communication.
Leo is not dismantling those reforms. He is staffing them.
The Real Divide
Damian Thompson thinks the story is that the angry old guard are “sputtering.”
That is not the story.
The story is that the old conservative movement spent decades assuring Catholics that personnel changes would solve the crisis. Now one of their own executives is being elevated into the very system they once criticized. And the revolution continues uninterrupted.
The real divide in Catholicism today is no longer liberal versus conservative. It is whether the post-conciliar transformation itself was a success. Leo’s latest appointment gives us another answer.
Not through words, but actions.
And actions, as Catholics once understood, speak louder than press releases.
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John Lennon’s "Imagine" is not “the most beautiful song in the world.” In fact it might be the most cringe song in the world. It should be impossible for any Christian to listen to it.
"The president of a Vatican theological academy now speaks as though willingness to die for God is itself the problem." How do we counter such nonsense? Here's an idea: why not pray to ask for some kind of miracle from King Baldwin IV, the Leper King of Jerusalem, who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds, and also his own debilitating illness, to defeat Saladin's Muslim forces at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177. Baldwin had only about 375 to 500 knights and a few thousand infantrymen. Saladin commanded a massive army of 26,000 to 30,000 soldiers. Baldwin's charge routed the Muslims, forcing Saladin to flee back to Egypt with only a fraction of his men.
A miracle from Baldwin would be necessary grounds to initiate the process of beatification for him, and later sainthood. He deserves it, both for his valor in battle and his spiritual patience of bearing the terrible illness of leprosy.
Of course canonizing Baldwin is the last thing in the world this Vatican would want to do. But with God nothing is impossible.
Increasingly, it seems Catholics don’t need the Vatican. Or Cardinals. Bureaucrats thrive on the budget. Americans should simply stop donating. At all. It won’t take long.