Pope Francis has named the first ever female to head the Vatican dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
(Sr Simona Brambilla ISMC, the first ever female to head the Vatican dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life...PC: Wikipedia)
On January 6, the Pontiff appointed Consolata Missionary Sr. Simona Brambilla as prefect for the Vatican office that works with religious orders and their members.
Sr. Brambilla adds to the list of women in leading roles after Pope Francis overhauled the Vatican’s central bureaucracy for the first time in thirty years. On March 19, 2022 after nine years to the day of Francis’ inauguration as pope in 2013, he released the 54-page text of the New Apostolic Constitution.
Under the title of Praedicate Evangelium (“Preach the Gospel”) the new document stressed that evangelization is the central task of the church. Stating in the preamble to the text, “the reform of the Roman Curia is also placed in the context of the missionary nature of the church,”
Praedicate Evangelium took effect on June 5, 2022 replacing the 1988 constitution Pastor Bonus (“The Good Shepherd”) by Pope St John Paul ll.
Under the new constitution, the Vatican’s Secretariat of State – which is broadly responsible for helping the Pope manage the Vatican and for conducting the Holy See’s international relations remains the highest office, followed by 16 different Vatican departments.
The new structure eliminates previous distinctions between Vatican congregations and councils, with the newly streamlined title of “dicastery.”
Most notably, the document states that “any member of the faithful can preside over a dicastery, “an update to the 1988 constitution, which specifically stated that Vatican dicastery’s are headed by a “cardinal prefect or the presiding archbishop”
Dramatically expanding the number of top leadership roles lay men and women can hold
fulfils a top priority of the College of Cardinals. This desire was made clear to improve and decentralize church governance when the Cardinals gathered to name the successor to Pope Benedict XVl. It will become the hallmark of Pope Francis’s pontificate.
Brambilla will now join a growing number of women that Pope Francis has elevated including Sr. Nathalie Becquart who is the under - secretary of the Vatican’s synod office.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Fernández Artime was appointed as pro – prefect to work alongside Brambilla. A Spanish Salesian and the 10th Successor of Don Bosco, he was made a Cardinal in the September 2023 Consistory by Pope Francis.
According to Catholic News Service, (CNS) Mercy Sister Sharon Euart, a canon lawyer in the US welcomed the news; “I don’t think the appointment of the pro- prefect diminishes the role or authority of the prefect in carrying out the responsibilities” she cited. Adding that the appointment of the pro-prefect recognizes that there may be situations that call for the exercise of holy orders such as liturgical functions which only the priest could perform.
Holding a doctorate in psychology from Rome’s Gregorian University, the Italian born missionary had served as secretary of the dicastery since October 2023.
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