The religious sisters in Vatican leadership

VATICAN CITY — Religious sisters and consecrated women are a formidable presence inside Vatican City State and the Roman Curia, with recent years seeing their number and prominence rise.

The increasing presence of women in the Vatican has been well documented. According to the Vatican, the percentage of women grew from 19.2% to 23.4% during the first decade of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

According to a study done at the end of 2024, there were 1,318 women in a total workforce of around 6,000. There is no publicly available data on how big a share of the female presence is composed of consecrated women and religious sisters.

Sister Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ, was one of the first women to be appointed to a major role at the Vatican when she was named undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in 2021. She was also the first woman to vote at a synodal assembly.

Becquart told EWTN News that during her five years at the Vatican not only have women been given more key positions, but they are also serving in less visible, though no less important, roles.

“At the Vatican now, you have more women as consultors to the different dicasteries or member of the dicasteries, on different commissions,” she said. “We had women in all our commissions as experts, as facilitators, inside the synod.”

In August 2025, Pope Leo appointed Sister Iuliana Sarosi, CMD, and Sister Martha Driscoll, OCSO, consultors of the Dicastery for Clergy.

Sister Raffaella Petrini of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist is the first woman in the history of the Church to head the Vatican City State.

She was appointed president of the Governorate and of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State — the equivalent of a kind of governor — in March 2025 after serving as secretary general of the city state for four years.

Petrini is also one of the first women to be a member of the Dicastery for Bishops. Pope Francis appointed Petrini, consecrated virgin María Lía Zervino, and Sister Yvonne Reungoat, FMA, members in July 2022.

Since 2023, the undersecretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) is also a religious sister: Sister Silvana Piro, FMGB.

Serving at the Vatican

Becquart described coming to the Vatican to work as “an adventure.”

“For me, being appointed at the Vatican has been a little bit like being sent to be a missionary in Papua New Guinea or in Brazil. It’s arriving in a new context, a new experience, learning a new language, new ways of working. A new culture, I would say, a new environment,” the sister said.

Becquart noted that one of the qualities religious sisters in general bring to their service at the Vatican is “a deep connection with real life.” As well, many “have started at the grassroots [ministering to] the people where they are. So we bring also this experience of being with others, especially with the poor and the most marginalized.”

Margherita Romanelli, a non-religious sister who recently retired after working for 31 years in the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, told EWTN News “the recent appointments of women to top positions have greatly helped other women working [in the Vatican] to feel valued and to commit themselves to working for the common good, alongside men.”

Romanelli, who is also president of the Women in the Vatican Association (DIVA), said the association was founded in 2016 because some women “felt the need to come together to respond to the needs of their female colleagues and, above all, to gain greater visibility within the Vatican. Their goal is therefore to create a network of friendship and solidarity.”

In the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, where Romanelli worked, economist Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, is the first woman to hold the No. 2 position.

Smerilli was named secretary in April 2022 after serving for eight months as interim secretary and, prior to that, almost half a year as undersecretary, starting in March 2021. Before starting in the Roman Curia, Smerilli was also a councilor of the Vatican City State.

Religious sisters serving religious

In one department at the Vatican, there has been a revolution of women religious in leadership over the last year.

In 2025, first Pope Francis, and then Pope Leo XIV, put two religious sisters in charge of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, starting with Sister Simona Brambilla of the Consolata Missionaries.

Appointed prefect in January 2025, Brambilla is the first woman ever named prefect of a dicastery. She leads together with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, SDB, who is pro-prefect of the same dicastery.

Brambilla, who served as superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters from 2011 to 2023, was secretary of the dicastery for religious and consecrated life since October 2023.

The sister, who trained as a nurse before entering religious life, was a missionary in Mozambique in the late 1990s. She then returned to Italy, where, with her advanced degree in psychology, she taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in its Institute of Psychology. She was head of the institute of Consolata Missionary Sisters from 2011 until May 2023.

In May 2025, Pope Leo XIV named Sister Tiziana Merletti, a Franciscan Sister of the Poor, secretary of the same dicastery.

Merletti, a former superior general of her order, is an expert in canon law who taught at the Pontifical University Antonianum.

With Sister Carmen Ros Nortes, NSC, who has been undersecretary of the same dicastery since 2018, three of the department’s top five positions are filled by religious sisters.

Read original article