Originally published at National Catholic Register
Pope Francis has marked another milestone in his pontificate by appointing, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a woman to head a Vatican dicastery. She is Italian nun Sister Simona Brambilla, the new prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Sister Simona, who will turn 60 on March 27, had been serving as secretary of the same dicastery since October 2023. She was the second woman to hold such a position, after Sister Alessandra Smerilli was appointed to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2021.
Moreover, just last month, on Dec. 13, 2024, Sister Simona was appointed by the Pope to be a member of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, which “is responsible for the preparation and realization of the Ordinary General Assembly” of the Synod of Bishops.
Regarding this appointment, the Italian nun said: “I deeply believe in the synodal journey. We have lived and are living an experience of the Spirit, which impels the Church to walk together, in mutual listening and mutual edification. From this experience there is no going back.”
“We go forward; and we go inward,
