Meta native Helen Osman receives papal honor
The honor recognizes her decades of leadership in Catholic media worldwide
Helen Osman served as executive director of communications for the Jefferson City diocese from 2018 to 2022 and as a consultant to then-Bishop Shawn McKnight until 2025. Her first work in the Catholic media was as a summer intern for The Catholic Missourian.
Though she doesn’t expect ever to use the benefit, Helen Osman is now eligible to attend Mass on horseback in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
She’s not a horse rider and cannot quite figure out how that would work anyway.
Pope Leo XIV invested Mrs. Osman, former president of SIGNIS World and the Catholic Media Association, as a dame of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Sylvester Sept. 1.
The ceremony took place in the office of Dr. Nataša Govekar, director of the Dicastery for Communication’s Theological-Pastoral Department.
Mrs. Osman served two consecutive terms as president of SIGNIS, from 2017 to 2026.
In 2022, Pope Francis (+2013-2025) appointed her a consultor to the Dicastery for Communication, and in April 2026, Pope Leo named her as a member of the dicastery.
“I am deeply humbled that the Holy Father would grant me this honor,” said Mrs. Osman. “My goal is always to use the gifts God has given me in service to his Kingdom — may the glory always be for him!”
The Order of St. Sylvester, one of five papal orders of knighthood, was established in 1841 and reorganized in 1905; Pope St. John Paul II (+1978-2005) opened the order to women in 1994.
Mrs. Osman believes she may have been nominated for the honor by someone in the Dicastery for Communications, especially since she was presented her certificate at the Vatican, while she was in Rome on pilgrimage.
“It’s intended to recognize the professional contributions of laypeople toward the mission of the Church,” she told The Catholic Journalist, publication of the Catholic Media Association (CMA). “And it can include non-Catholics, which I appreciated.”
“I really was touched by it,” she said, “because I think it’s a recognition of not just my effort, but I think those of us in communications, that this is an important contribution to the mission of the Church in attempting to not just communicate the good news of the Gospel, but really working in the world, attempting to promote the common good.”
Mrs. Osman has had an extensive career working in Catholic communications, including as diocesan editor and communications director and as chief communications officer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Her work with the U.S. bishops included efforts to organize communications plans and logistics for visits by Pope Benedict XVI (+2005-2013) and Pope Francis to the United States.
Mrs. Osman now runs Greater Wings, which provides strategic planning and implementation and media relations, among other services, particularly for nonprofits.
She served as president of what is now the CMA from 2004 to 2007, and received the St. Francis de Sales Award, the CMA’s highest and most prestigious individual award, in 2012.
Osman’s work over the years brought her into contact with SIGNIS, the global organization whose mission is to “engage with media professionals and support Catholic Communicators to help transform our cultures in the light of the Gospel by promoting human dignity, justice and reconciliation,” according to its website.
SIGNIS is an association of the lay faithful authorized by the Vatican, with statutes under the purview of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
“It’s intended to support the work of professional Catholic communicators, whether they’re working inside the Church or in the secular world,” said Mrs. Osman. “Which is an interesting aspect of the association because in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world, its membership is really only those who work inside the Church.”
In North America, the CMA is an organizational member, working mostly with those people who are already in Catholic communications. But in South Korea, for example, there is a SIGNIS chapter within the Korean Broadcasting System, which is similar to PBS, the Public Broadcasting System in the United States.
Mrs. Osman said she witnessed the dynamics of bringing together people from different fields in communication to work as Catholics to address a major issue.
“That is what the Vatican is doing right now around artificial intelligence,” she stated. “It’s not just that Pope Leo wrote an encyclical, which is amazing in and of itself. But in May, (the Vatican) brought together a bunch of people, and I was invited as president of SIGNIS, to hear a full day of presentations. And I’m not sure if any of the presenters were Catholic.
“It was obvious from their presentations that they did not feel like they had to align themselves with the creed of the Catholic Church,” she said. “But it was also extremely obvious they were so grateful to be able to be there and to talk about their concerns about AI and some of the things that they were doing with AI to succeed within this context of an institution that really has no political power, if you will, nor political ideology.”
In various countries, SIGNIS works in an array of different communications efforts, including cinema juries, media literacy and journalism training.
Mrs. Osman said a lot of her time as SIGNIS president focused on “keeping the wheels on the bus” because of fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and restructuring of the communications department in Rome. Funding for much of the programming and initiatives dried up and needs to be replaced.
She is gratified that the Hilton Foundation, which as one of its focuses supports women religious around the world, is supporting a program for Africa, Asia and Latin America, to help amplify the work the sisters are doing for people.
Christopher Gunty is associate publisher and editor of Catholic Review Media in Baltimore. This report was originally published in the October 2026 issue of The Catholic Journalist, newspaper of the CMA.
