Pope Francis on Monday appointed Sister Simona Brambilla to head the Vatican office that oversees religious orders for both men and women — including more than a quarter of the world’s priests — making her the first woman to reach the No. 1 position in an office in the Holy See.
The choice reflects Francis’ avowed aim to give women greater leadership roles in the Roman Catholic Church. He has named several women to high-ranking positions, including the director of the Vatican museums. Sister Brambilla is the first prefect of a department of the Roman Curia, as the central administration of the church is known.
“This is very good news,” said Anne-Marie Pelletier, a theologian who has also written a book about women and the church. “It’s something completely new,” and shows what can be done in the church. “For me it’s a really important moment.”
But alongside Sister Brambilla, Francis named Cardinal Angel Fernandez Artime as pro-prefect, or co-leader, of the department. It wasn’t immediately clear how the two would share responsibilities, and some critics saw the co-appointment as diluting Sister Brambilla’s effective role.
“For a woman to be appointed as prefect would be great news, if it weren’t for the fact that she has been flanked by someone, it’s like assigning a custodian who can control her,” said Lucetta Scaraffia, a church historian and feminist, who said that in this context, the appointment was “window dressing.”
Sister Brambilla will lead the department — its official title is Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life — that promotes and oversees religious orders of men and women, though the vast majority are for women. According to Vatican statistics published last year, some 128,500 priests — more than 25 percent of the world’s total — belonged to orders like the Jesuits or Franciscans as of 2022, as well as fewer than 50,000 brothers. The number of women in religious orders totaled 599,228 in 2022. The department also oversees many lay movements.
Before 2019, all the members of the Vatican department had been men, but both religious sisters and some bishops had long complained about the absence of women in decision-making positions in an office with operations that could directly affect their lives. In 2019, Francis appointed seven women as members of the department. In 2022, he released a new constitution reforming the Roman Curia that made it possible for laypeople, including women, to become prefects. In 2023, Sister Brambilla was chosen as secretary of the department. She is taking over from Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, 77, who was named in 2011.
Sister Brambilla, 59, was born in Monza, near Milan. She was a professional nurse before becoming a Consolata Missionary, and has a doctorate in psychology. She led her religious order as superior from 2011 to 2023.
Critics accuse Francis of dragging his heels when it comes to appointing women to top decision-making positions in the church, but he has done more than his predecessors. Just 10 years ago, only two women held top positions in the Curia. Now there are around a dozen. According to Vatican News, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of women working at the Vatican rose to 23.4 percent from 19.2 percent.
For the first time, two years ago Francis allowed women to vote at a meeting of bishops that sought to map the future of the church. While the role of women in the church was among the most-discussed topics at that meeting, which ended in October, the question of whether women could be ordained as deacons remained open.
“It’s definitely a positive shift at the Vatican,” Kate McElwee, the executive director of Women’s Ordination Conference, said of Sister Brambilla’s appointment. However, she too was perplexed about the role of the pro-prefect. “It just proves that there’s still some kinks to work out and hoops that women have to go through to assume these positions at the Vatican,” she said.
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