Pope Francis appoints first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery

Pope Francis appoints first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery - Printable Version

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Pope Francis appoints first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery - Stone - 01-13-2025

Pope Francis appoints first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery
In a historic move, Pope Francis has appointed a nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life, highlighting his ongoing push to increase female leadership in the Vatican.

[Image: brambilla.jpg]

Sr. Simona Brambilla
Vatican News/ file photo

Jan 6, 2025
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews - slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included from the original) –– In a groundbreaking move, Pope Francis appointed a nun as head of a Vatican dicastery today, making Sister Simona Brambilla the first woman to lead an office in the Roman Curia.

Announced via the Holy See press bulletin on the feast of the Epiphany, the Pope’s leadership choice for the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life was made public.

Sr. Brambilla of the Consolata Missionaries will now become prefect of the Dicastery, thus taking over from the notoriously anti-traditional Cardinal João Braz de Aviz. With the new position, she will be able to continue her outspoken push for increasing leadership positions held by women in the Church.

Brambilla, 59, has served as secretary of the dicastery since October 2023, being the first woman to hold the role. Indeed, she was one of seven women appointed to the dicastery as consulters – which was itself a groundbreaking move.

Brambilla served two terms as superior general of the Consolata Missionaries between 2011 and 2023, having been a general councillor for six years prior to that.

Also announced today was the appointment of Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime as pro-prefect of the same dicastery. Artime, 64, was created a cardinal in September 2023 and was former head of the the Salesians between 2014 and 2024. The Spaniard had been without a notable position since leaving his role as head of the Salesians last year, prompting much speculation as to where he might be moved, with many assuming Artime would be named as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life.

With a cardinal now subordinate to a religious woman, Francis’ pick is one which will be noted as a key event by those eager to see the achievement of goals such as female ordination.

Brambilla is the first woman to lead a dicastery in the Roman Curia, although women – such as Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, and Sister Raffaella Petrini, secretary general of the Governorate of the Vatican City State – already serve in notably high-ranking positions in the Vatican, thanks to Francis.

Since the 2022 publication of Francis’ much-anticipated reforms of the Roman Curia in his apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, the placement of women in positions of power has continued to grow. So also has the structure and operation of the Curia been changed to be more in line with Francis’ style of “synodal” governance, which crucially relies on curial figures who will work in accordance with his wishes.

READ: Pope Francis reforms Roman Curia, says any layperson can hold ‘governance’ positions in Vatican

The Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (DICLSAL) has competency over religious and secular institutes, orders, congregations, and societies of men and women in the Catholic Church, and as such Brambilla’s role carries significant power.

The office of pro-prefect is a new one to the dicastery as of today, although it is not new to the Roman Curia. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle has served as pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization since June 2022.

In recent years, under the leadership of Braz de Aviz, DICLSAL has become infamous for its implementation of Francis’ Cor Orans document, which has issued in tighter Vatican control over religious life and been widely – though often quietly – used against convents and religious orders noted for being too traditional for the liking of Roman officials.

In addition to restricting already existing groups, a 2022 Rescript via the dicastery prevented diocesan bishops from autonomously establishing any groups of the faithful looking to become religious institutes or societies, in a move which was described as an attempt to prevent any new traditional communities from being formed.

Traditional and contemplative religious communities have been under increasing pressure from the Vatican, particularly since the publication of Cor Orans and the 2016 document Vultum Dei quaerere. Father Maximilian Mary Dean, a former Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate and the chaplain to the discalced Carmelite nuns of Fairfield, Pennsylvania, warned that under Braz de Aviz the dicastery was “just going to destroy the vocations and the way of life.”

Since the 2021 promulgation of Traditionis Custodes, traditional Mass groups like the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, and the Institute of the Good Shepherd have now fallen under the purview of DICLSAL.

With the past summer awash with rumors about a new document set to restrict the traditional Mass, Brambilla’s new role could see her liaise much more closely with Francis in the future of the traditional orders. In early 2023, reports suggested that it was Brambilla’s own dicastery – at that time led by Braz de Aviz – which would publish new restrictions on the traditional Mass, but such rumors never came to fruition.

As Francis forges ahead with a “new-look” curia, involving female governance positions, while still allowing the open discussion on the topic of female deacons, Brambilla is unlikely to remain the only woman appointed to such a leading role while Francis is alive.

RE: Pope Francis appoints first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery - Stone - 01-13-2025

Opinion from a Canon lawyer, arguing that this appointment by Pope Francis is in violation of even the Vatican II position and the New Code of Canon Law regarding female leadership, calling it a 'betrayal of Vatican II':

Priest: Pope Francis broke canon law, Catholic teaching by naming woman as dicastery prefect
If Pope Francis still had a last shred of integrity, he would no longer be able to accuse anyone of disregarding Vatican II or breaking canon law. For he has done both himself on an important issue.

[Image: PF-Dec-2024-consis.jpg]

Dr. Martin Grichting
Jan 8, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — The time has now come. The Pope has appointed a woman as prefect of a dicastery of the Apostolic See, the one for religious orders.

The case is puzzling. Either the new “prefect” can exercise ecclesiastical authority in the name of the Pope (cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 360), as is the case with the other prefects of the curia. As she is a layperson, we would be back in the days of the German imperial Church. At that time, as is well known, there were “bishops” who held the office in question and exercised ecclesiastical authority without having been ordained bishops. The damage was immense. The outbreak of Protestantism had a lot to do with this serious grievance.

Or the new “prefect” cannot exercise proper executive Church authority in this function after all. Then the appointment is a fake, a pure show. The “prefect” would then only be a kind of titular prefect. Her title would be a title without means. Has she been given a cardinal, who is a bishop, as a “pro-prefect” on the same day, who has to sign everything that has to do with ecclesiastical jurisdiction because the “prefect” herself has no authority to do so? The appointment was made public without comment.

It therefore appears that the Pope is willing to restore the medieval abuse mentioned above. If this is the case, the following must be stated:

A layman as prefect with jurisdictional power – whether man or woman – would first of all be a betrayal of the Second Vatican Council. For this Council cleared up the medieval abuses by stating (Lumen Gentium, 21): “Episcopal ordination confers with the office of sanctification also the offices of teaching and leadership, which, however, by their very nature can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.” This expresses the unity and inseparability of the power of consecration and the power of leadership. Consecration is the ability to receive the power of governance. It has therefore no longer been possible to separate these powers.

It has always been disgraceful that the incumbent pope has insulted believers by saying that they are “indietrists,” backward-looking people. Now, however, this would also become hypocrisy. For the Pope would make himself an “indietrist,” going back before Vatican II and restoring medieval abuses.

And that’s not all: the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1983, in can. 129 § 1, based on Lumen Gentium 21, states: “Those who have received sacred orders are qualified, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, for the power of governance, which exists in the Church by divine institution and is also called the power of jurisdiction.”

Can. 274 states more clearly: “Only clerics can obtain offices for whose exercise the power of orders or the power of ecclesiastical governance is required.”

If a woman religious, who cannot be and is not a cleric, were now to exercise ordinary vicarious authority as prefect of a dicastery of the Roman Curia, this would constitute a breach of canon law on a vital issue.

Of course, the Pope can break canon law. There are no consequences for him, but there are for the Church. Can. 333 § 3 reads: “No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” And can. 1404 emphasizes accordingly: “The First See is judged by no one.”

However, the problem of the pope breaking the law is not a legal one but a moral one concerning the unity of the Church. In his commentary on the “Nota explicativa praevia,” which is an integral part of Lumen Gentium, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger emphasized “that in his actions the Pope is not subject to any external tribunal that could act as an appellate authority against him, but is bound by the internal claim of his office, the revelation of the Church. This inner claim of his office, however, also undoubtedly includes a moral commitment to the voice of the universal Church” (Commentary on ‘Lumen Gentium,’ in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd edition, Supplementary Volume I, p. 356).

If this “pact” between the Pope and the universal Church, which – as already mentioned – is not a legal but a moral one, were to be broken by the Pope, it would plunge the Church into chaos. For if the Pope still had a last shred of integrity, he would no longer be able to accuse anyone of disregarding Vatican II or breaking canon law. For he would now have done both himself on an important issue. Who should abide by doctrine and laws if the “guardian” of doctrine and laws no longer abides by them?

If the appointment of a “prefect” is anything more than a deepfake that only pretends that a layperson can exercise proper vicarious leadership, the Feast of the Epiphany in 2025 will go down in the history of the Church as the day on which all members of the Church were de facto released by the Pope from obedience to the doctrine and order of the Church. After all, no one would then be able to honestly demand obedience if the supreme shepherd himself was no longer willing to do so.

But even if the new “prefect” is only an operetta prefect, the damage has already been done. Because the anger of women who are enthusiastic about becoming bishops would be boundless. They would feel that they had been taken for a ride, the victims of an attempted deception. And anyone who has tried to maintain the last remnants of theological seriousness under this pontificate would also be the victim of such a premature April Fool’s joke. Enough is enough.

Father Martin Grichting is a professor of Canon Law who taught at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. He was the vicar general of the Swiss Diocese of Chur from 2009 until 2019.