Pope Francis appoints first-ever woman to head Vatican dicastery

Pope Francis greets Sister Simona Brambilla, superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, on June 5, 2017 in Clementine Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: L’Osservatore Romano

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2025 / 09:25 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has named for the first time a woman, Sister Simona Brambilla, to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia, continuing to add to the number of women in leadership roles at the Vatican, a hallmark of his pontificate.

The 59-year-old Brambilla, a member and former superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, has been secretary of the Vatican department for religious and consecrated life since October 2023.

Pope Francis appointed the Italian sister prefect of the department on Monday. She will lead the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life together with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, who was named pro-prefect on Jan. 6.

A Spaniard, the 64-year-old Fernández concluded a decade as rector major of the Salesians last year. The appointment of an ordained bishop as pro-prefect of the same dicastery was necessary because Church law calls for ordination in order to carry out certain governing powers.

Brambilla, who trained as a nurse before entering religious life, was a missionary in Mozambique in the late 1990s. She then returned to Italy, where, with her advanced degree in psychology, she taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in its Institute of Psychology. She was head of the institute of Consolata Missionary Sisters from 2011 until May 2023. 

Brambilla joins several other religious and non-religious laywomen appointed by Pope Francis to important posts in the Vatican, including Franciscan Sister Raffaella Petrini, the first woman to hold the second-ranking post in the government of the Vatican City State.

Other high-ranking women at the Holy See are Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Sister Nathalie Becquart, an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops; and laywomen Gabriella Gambino and Linda Ghisoni, undersecretaries of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life.

A number of women are also secretaries of some of the Roman Curia’s commissions and councils.

Last month, Pope Francis also named Brambilla a member of the 16th Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod alongside Argentinian laywoman María Lía Zervino. They are the only women and non-bishops on the 17-member council.

In the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Brambilla and Fernández will be assisted by two undersecretaries, Father Aitor Jiménez Echave, CMF, and Sister Carmen Ros Nortes, NSC.