Beyond historical records: the meaning of Francis’ feminine appointments

Without proclamations, but in her first official act, Sr Simona Brambilla feminized her title. Pope Francis announced he had appointment her, the first woman to head a Vatican dicastery on January 6. While many were blowing hot and cold on the subject, on January 10 she signed a document where under her name there is a simple but eloquent professional feminine: Prefetta [Prefect]. The only woman among fifteen men.

This signature was a substantial fact. Then, what followed came to the fore amidst the comments, reasoning and distinctions recorded on the significance and “weight” of her appointment. Both within the Church and in the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, of which she had been secretary since 2023, where Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime was simultaneously appointed pro-prefect.

Whichever way we look at it, the historic moment is there. For the first time in two thousand years, a woman is taking on a role of such significant importance within the Vatican Curia, appointed to a position previously reserved exclusively for men.

First steps and future challenges

The galaxy of the Dicastery is enormous. There are more than 800,000 men and women religious, with women’s communities accounting for more than two-thirds.

Simona Brambilla will have to deal with thorny issues and human difficulties. These include the decline of religious life in the western world; sexual violence and abuse; power and spirituality; and the relationship between obedience and authority, along the subtle ridge separating change and fidelity. Her first measure as Prefect concerns the commissioning of two religious institutes: the first, the clerical Verbo Encarnado and its female branch Servidoras del Senor y de la Virgen de Matarà. The second, the 71-year-old Spanish Daughter of Jesus Sister Clara Echarte was appointed as pontifical delegate, and this too is another small revolution. To date, only presbyters had been appointed to pilot open crises in congregations. Women, lay or religious, participated as visitors or collaborators, nothing more.

Some of the lines along which Brambilla will move were evident on January 10 at the International Union of Superiors General headquarters (UISG) where the Assembly of the Roman Constellation was held. In her speech, the Prefect emphasized that synodality is an essential element in building a Church capable of responding to contemporary challenges. She said that spiritual authority must not be seen as power, and that it is essential that religious communities commit themselves to repairing and renewing these relationships, while creating a welcoming environment, which offers both support and mutual growth. She then invited the superiors general to consider the need for a revitalization of frameworks and concluded with an invitation to strengthen the formation of formators, especially those called to accompany young religious.

Dedication and competence

Simona Brambilla is Italian, born in Monza in 1965. She has dedicated much of her life to the mission, with significant experience in Mozambique.

In 1986, she graduated as a nurse and worked at the Leopoldo Mandic hospital in Merate (Lecco). Two years later, she entered the Missionary Sisters of the Consolata and made her first religious profession in 1991. In 1998, she obtained a license in Psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. After making her perpetual profession in 1999, she was responsible for youth pastoral care at the Macua Xirima study centre in Maua, Mozambique. She then taught from 2002 to 2006 at the Gregorian Institute of Psychology, and received her doctorate in Psychology in 2008.   Within her congregation, she was Superior General until 2023. Then the path in the Curia by papal appointment: on  July 8, 2019, she and six other women became members of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life for the first time; in 2023 she was secretary of the Dicastery; in December 2024 member of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod; and, on  January 6, 2025 Prefect.

A change of perspective

Francis accelerates. Since his election in 2013 and the ten years since, the percentage of women holding positions in the Holy See and in the administration of the Vatican State rose from 19.2 per cent to 23.4 per cent.

After Sr Brambilla’s appointment in January, he made a second move, which seemed disorienting but nonetheless, straightforward. On January 19, during an interview on the television programme “Che tempo che fa”, when asked if he envisaged a role for women in the Church of the future, Francis replied bluntly, “but also in the present”. In addition, he announced the appointment, which will take place in March, of Sister Raffaella Petrini as president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, of which she is currently general secretary. The Pontiff stressed, “Women know how to manage better than we do”.  The appointment of Perini, who was born in Rome in 1969 and belongs to the Franciscan order of the Eucharist, marks another historical first. The role of president of the Governorate has in fact always held by a cardinal, but with her appointment as secretary in 2021, the first to hold this role usually assigned to a bishop, this nun described as very discreet and very efficient became the woman with the highest administrative role in the Vatican. A role that is also that of a manager: the duties of the Governorate range from the Vatican Museums, gardens, building maintenance, contracts, salaries, relations with suppliers...

On January 4, while participating in Rome in a course for theology teachers promoted by the Italian Theological Association, Petrini spoke of “humanistic” managerialism, a managerialism “Of care, aimed at creating value also from a moral point of view. In her thought, “a loss of meaning of human work within economic organisations - ecclesial and otherwise - constitutes an element of profound crisis, because it also represents a loss of the meaning of life”. From this “derives the conceptual priority of work over so-called capital, which always constitutes only a set of tools through which the person, the “subject” of his own work, is able to use the resources at his disposal and transform his surroundings”. A combination of professionalism and vocation. Solemnly professed in 2007, Petrini studied political science specializing in industrial work at Luiss-Guido Carli in Rome. She then earned a doctorate in Social Sciences at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas and a master’s degree in organisation behavior at the Barney School of Business, University of Hartford, USA. From 2015 to 2019, she taught Church social doctrine and health sociology at the Camillianum International Institute of Pastoral Health Theology in Rome. In 2019, she became full professor of welfare economics and sociology of economic processes at the Faculty of Social Sciences of St Thomas Aquinas. In July 2022, Francis also appointed her as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops and since then she has participated in the process of electing new diocesan pastors.

A sign of change

The appointments of Simona Brambilla and Raffaella Petrini are not only a historical first; instead, they are a concrete step towards a more inclusive Church, where competence and commitment begin to prevail over traditional gender barriers. The challenge now will be to demonstrate that this change is not only symbolic, but can lead to a renewal in the management of the church’s institutions.

Regarding Brambilla’s appointment, Véronique Margron, a religious of the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation and president of the Conference of Religious of France, said in an interview with La Croix that she experienced “relief”. “It was abnormal that no woman had this level of responsibility in the Vatican”.