ROME — Pope Francis on Monday named the first woman to head a major Vatican office, naming an Italian nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, as prefect of the department responsible for all religious orders in the Catholic Church.
The appointment marks a major step in Francis’ goal to give women more leadership roles in church governance. While women have been named to second positions in some Vatican offices, never before has a woman been named prefect of a dicastery or congregation of the Holy See Curia, the central governing body of the Catholic Church.
The historic nature of Brambilla’s appointment was confirmed by Vatican media, which headlined its report: “Sister Simona Brambilla is the first female prefect of the Vatican.”
The office is one of the most important in the Vatican. Known officially as the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, it is responsible for all religious orders, from the Jesuits and Franciscans to the Nuns of Mercy and smaller, more recent movements.
The appointment means a woman is now responsible for the women who do much of the Church’s work – the 600,000 Catholic nuns worldwide – as well as the 129,000 Catholic priests who belong to religious orders.
“It should be a woman. It should have been a long time ago, but thank God,” said Thomas Groome, senior professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, who has long called for the ordination of women priests. “It’s a small step on the path but symbolically it shows an opening and a new horizon or a new possibility.”
Groome noted that nothing theologically would now prevent Francis from appointing Brambilla a cardinal, since cardinals technically do not have to be ordained priests.
The cardinal appointment “would be automatic for a head of dicastery if she were a man,” he said.
But, a sign of the novelty of the appointment and the fact that Francis was perhaps not ready to go that far, the pope simultaneously named as co-responsible, or “pro-prefect,” a cardinal: Ángel Fernández Artime , a Salesian.
The appointment, announced in the Vatican’s daily bulletin, designates Brambilla first as “prefect” and Fernández second as his co-leader. Theologically, it appears that Francis believed the second appointment was necessary since the head of the office must be able to celebrate Mass and perform other sacramental functions that can currently only be performed by men.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, chair of Manhattan University’s religion and philosophy department, was initially excited about Brambilla’s appointment, only to learn that Francis had named a male co-prefect.
“One day, I pray, the Church will see women as the capable leaders that they already are,” she said. “It’s ridiculous to think she needs help running a Vatican dicastery. Furthermore, for as long as men have been responsible for this division of Vatican governance, they have governed both male and female religious communities.”
Brambilla, 59, is a member of the Consolata Missionaries religious order and has held the position of number 2 in the department of religious orders since 2023. She succeeds outgoing Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, 77.
Francis made Brambilla’s appointment possible through his 2022 reform of the Holy See’s founding constitution, which allowed lay people, including women, to head a dicastery and become prefects.
Brambilla, a nurse, worked as a missionary in Mozambique and led her Consolata order as superior from 2011 to 2023, when Francis named her secretary of the department of religious orders.
One of the major challenges she will face is the fall in the number of nuns around the world. That number has declined by about 10,000 a year in recent years, from about 750,000 in 2010 to 600,000 last year, according to Vatican statistics.
Brambilla’s appointment is the latest step taken by Francis to show by example how women can assume leadership roles within the Catholic hierarchy, without allowing them to be ordained priests.
Catholic women have long complained of second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.
Francis has maintained the ban on female priests and suppressed hopes that women could be ordained deacons.
But there has been a marked increase in the percentage of women working at the Vatican under his pontificate, including in senior positions, from 19.3% in 2013 to 23.4% today, according to statistics reported by Vatican News. In the Curia alone, the percentage of women is 26%.
Women in leadership positions include Sister Raffaella Petrini, the first female secretary general of the Vatican City State, responsible for the territory’s health system, police and main source of income, the Vatican Museums. Vatican, led by a secular woman. , Barbara Jatta.
Another nun, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, is number two in the Vatican development office while several women have been appointed to undersecretary positions, including the French nun, Sister Nathalie Becquart, at the synod of bishops.
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