For the primary time in historical past for the Catholic Church, Pope Francis appointed Sister Simona Brambilla as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Her new position made her the primary lady to go a Vatican dicastery, a call hailed as a landmark for the church's governance and its strategy to girls's roles in its buildings.
Sister Brambilla, an Italian nun with a long time of expertise in missionary work and management, has lengthy been a distinguished determine within the Church. From October 2023, she served as secretary of the identical dicastery, the place her work highlighted her capacity to navigate advanced pastoral and administrative duties.
In December 2024, she was additionally appointed to the Common Council of the Normal Secretariat of the Synod, a task linked to the worldwide synod course of initiated by Pope Francis.
Reflecting on her involvement, she famous: “I consider deeply within the synodal journey. We now have lived and live the expertise of the Spirit that forces the Church to stroll collectively, in mutual listening and mutual constructing. From this expertise there isn’t any going again.”
Her journey to this historic position started a long time earlier when she joined the Consolata Missionaries in 1988 and later served as a missionary in Mozambique. There she handled problems with evangelization and cultural integration, experiences that knowledgeable her doctoral work in psychology on the Gregorian Institute of Psychology in Rome, the place she additionally taught.
The years 2005 to 2018 as Superior Normal of the Consolata Missionaries additional ready her for the calls for of the Vatican management. She mixed these international obligations with a deal with the sensible actuality of religion, which was tremendously aided by her skilled expertise as a nurse.
Sister Brambilla's perspective on the challenges of consecrated life displays her years of service throughout completely different cultures and environments. When she spoke in regards to the renewal of consecrated life in 2023, she pointed to the transformative energy of listening and collaboration.
“Encountering others is a supply of progress, an alternate of items, grace,” she mentioned.
She repeatedly emphasised the significance of humility in management, citing Pope Francis' name to embrace the “hidden grace” of smallness, the place the church's energy lies not in its dimension however in its dependence on God's energy.
Her imaginative and prescient for the church is inclusion, dialogue and shared accountability. In early 2024, she mirrored on Pope Francis' educating that the Church should regain its “female face”.
Though Sister Brambilla's appointment doesn’t change the Church's place on ministerial priesthood, it does supply recognition of girls's contribution to its management and pastoral mission. When requested if her new position may result in a “demasculinization” of the church, she dismissed the concept as simplistic and as an alternative emphasised the necessity for a extra balanced understanding of the interaction between the masculine and female dimensions of the church.
“Everybody must increase this reflection and put it into apply,” she mentioned. “It requires a cautious research of the female dimension of the church and mission within the broadest sense of the phrase.”
Its management has already attracted consideration for its readability and openness, particularly when coping with delicate issues. As secretary of the dicastery, she oversaw investigations such because the Apostolic Visitation of the Priestly Brotherhood of St. Peter and the closing of a Carmelite monastery in Texas. Her capacity to supply pastoral care with administrative rigor gained her the belief of her friends and the broader church.
Though Brambillo's appointment doesn’t carry sacramental authority, her appointment is a part of a broader effort by Pope Francis to make sure better participation of girls within the lifetime of the church. It displays his perception that if the church is to satisfy the challenges of the fashionable world, it should draw on the complete vary of human items.
