Pope lauds role and need for women in top Vatican jobs

Elise Ann Allen/ Crux • January 20, 2025

Pope Francis has said he will soon name another women to a key role overseeing administration of the Vatican City State. It comes in the wake of him recently appointing the first-ever woman prefect of a Vatican department.

The Pope’s remarks came in an interview with Italian journalist Fabio Fazio on the popular evening television program Che tempo che fa that aired 19 January.

Fazio asked the Pope about the recent appointment of Italian Sister Simona Brambilla as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, commonly called the Dicastery for Religious, and what it means for the future of women in the Vatican.

“The work of women in the curia is something that has progressed slowly and has been well understood,” the Pope said, noting that three women now form part of a panel that vets and approves new candidates for the episcopacy.

He noted that there is also a woman, Italian Sister Rafaella Petrini, who serves as vice-governor of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, adding that she “will become the governor in March”.

Petrini, 56, will take over from Spanish Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, who will turn 80 in March 2025. He has led the Governorate since 2021 and is also a member of the pope’s Council of Cardinals advisory body.

Pope Francis in the interview also noted that a woman serves as Vice Coordinator of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy.

“Women know how to do things better than us,” he said, recalling how he once asked the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, who is a mother of seven, how she managed her time.

In response, he recalled, Von der Leyen made a gesture indicating that she simply did it, “like mothers do”, the Pope added.

Pope Francis has made a point of appointing more women to leadership roles in the Vatican, including influential decision-making positions within the Roman Curia, as in the case of Brambilla and, soon, Petrini.

There are rumours that, eventually, he will also name Italian Sister and economist Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development, as prefect.

Should this happen, she would take over from Canadian Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, who has long been a close papal ally and the Pope’s point-man on the issue of migrants and refugees.

Over the past four years, during the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, the role of women in the Church and the issue of women’s inclusion in meaningful leadership and decision-making roles has been a key point of discussion in the Catholic Church.

While the Pope for the time being has ruled out women’s priestly ordination as well as a women’s diaconate, he has been studying topics surrounding the potential roles of women in the Church, through his Council of Cardinals and by hearing from various theologians and experts.

He has traditionally stressed the complementarity of men and women and has often touted Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Petrine and Marian principles as underlining how important the role of Mary is, and therefore, by connection, how the role of women in the Church is just as important as, if not more so than, that of men, regardless of access to ordination.

Francis’s appointment of Brambilla as prefect was met with applause by many who hailed it as a major step forward for women in the Vatican.

However, it was also met with skepticism by some who continue to have canonical doubts about a woman serving as prefect.

To this end, much was made of the announcement, alongside Brambilla’s appointment, that Spanish Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, 65, the former head of the Salesian order, was named pro-prefect in the Dicastery for Religious, without fully explaining what his exact role would be.

His appointment as pro-prefect has been boiled down to a longstanding argument, which exists among canon lawyers and experts, that because heads of some Vatican departments make binding decisions in the name of the Pope, sharing in the exercise of his power, they therefore need to be in Holy Orders – meaning being ordained to the priesthood.

That debate remains lively, especially in light of Brambilla’s appointment, making the nomination of future women prefects such as Petrini and perhaps, eventually, Smerilli, a lingering point of discomfort for many, though one that Pope Francis seems happy to ignore for now.

Some observers have also argued that other than Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, which is Vatican City’s main source of revenue, there are few lay women, or, for that matter, lay men, in positions of Vatican leadership.

For the Vatican, which tends to think in terms of centuries rather than days or weeks or years, change can be slow, and any adjustments to having women in charge, religious or not, will take time; though Pope Francis doesn’t seem to be wasting any when it comes to addressing the issue.

Photo: Sister Raffaella Petrini, vice governor of the Governorate of Vatican City State, attends the Pope’s Christmas audience with Vatican employees in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Vatican City State, 23 December 2021. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images.)