The importance of women

Sister Simona Brambilla is the first woman prefect in the Vatican. Francis had expressed his intention to entrust the leadership of a Vatican ministry to a woman. Since Epiphany, this desire has become reality with the appointment to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in practice of friars, monks and nuns from all over the world. Alongside the nun, the Pontiff has chosen Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, historic rector of the Salesians, as pro-prefect.

Sister Brambilla is a "missionary with sandals on her feet and her gaze on the world". Born in Monza on March 27, 1965, she has built her path between study and mission. After graduating as a professional nurse in 1986, in 1988 she entered the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, founded by the Turin priest Giuseppe Allamano. Sister Simona's first religious profession came in 1991, followed by a solid academic education: in 1998 she obtained a degree in psychology. The following year she left for Mozambique, where she dedicated herself to youth ministry in Maua. A work that allowed her to immerse herself in the culture of the Macua people and to deal with the challenges of the mission in the extreme peripheries of the planet.

In 2011 she was elected superior general of the Consolata Missionaries, a position she held until 2023. She tenaciously faced "bleeding wounds" and arduous tasks of religious life: pedophilia and the various abuses in the Sacred Rooms; ecclesiastical renewal under the banner of greater synodality-collegiality to overcome "clericalism", as the Argentine Pontiff has always indicated. The prefect Sister Brambilla is part of a process of growing female presence in the governance roles of the Holy See. From 2013 to 2023, under the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the percentage of women in the Curia went from 19.2% to 23.4%. A revolution traced with the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium of 2022, which paved the way for lay people and women to lead the dicasteries, "a role that was previously reserved for cardinals and archbishops", as the Holy See recalls on Vatican News.

Among the prominent figures who have emerged in recent years, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development since 2021; Sister Raffaella Petrini, vice governor of the Governorate, will be governor of the Vatican City State from March, as Francis announced in the interview with Fabio Fazio on Che tempo che fa on Canale Nove; and Barbara Jatta, the first woman to direct the Vatican Museums. Clear signs of a structural change underway.


Domenico Agasso
NP February 2025