VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday named a former Fox TV correspondent as his spokesman and tapped a Spanish woman to be the deputy, the first time a woman has held the post.

Greg Burke, 56, takes over from the Rev. Federico Lombardi, 73, a Jesuit like Francis who has been Vatican spokesman for a decade.

Burke, a native of Misssouri, is a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement. In December, he moved in as Lombardi’s deputy after working as a communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state since 2012.

His deputy will be Paloma Garcia Ovejero, 40, currently the Vatican correspondent for the Spanish broadcaster Cadena Cope.

The change is part of an overhaul of the Vatican’s entire communications operations aimed at centralizing authority under the new Secretariat for Communications, headed by Monsignor Dario Vigano.

Vigano presented Burke and Ovejero to the Vatican press corps Monday after the three had a tete-a-tete with Francis.

Lombardi was named spokesman 10 years ago Monday, adding to his already heavy load as director of Vatican Radio.

He won the respect of journalists for his dry humor, reliable readouts, and cool demeanor amid many Vatican storms. From sex abuse scandals to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI’s historic resignation and the election of a fellow Jesuit as pope, Lombardi rarely seemed flustered.

Lombardi said Monday that he didn’t know what he would do in the future but that ‘‘I don’t foresee disappearing completely from the Vatican,’’ suggesting a possible informal communications advisory role down the line.

He said he had always offered Francis his availability to step aside as part of the Vatican’s revamping of its communications strategy and said the time simply had arrived for the change.

In a separate development, the Vatican said Francis will meet with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders during his Sept. 30-Oct. 2 trip to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. That will add a strong interreligious dimension to a politically delicate trip.

In Georgia, after meeting with the president, Francis will call on the spiritual leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, and meet with the Assyrian and Chaldean Catholic community.

In majority-Muslim Azerbaijan, Francis will celebrate Mass with the tiny Catholic community and meet with the region’s chief imam, Allahshukur Pashazade, as well as the Orthodox bishop of Baku and head of the country’s Jewish community.