“Women are like strawberries on a cake: you always need more”declared Pope Francis, on December 5, 2014, before the International Theological Commission. “One of the greatest sins we have committed was” masculinizing “the Church”repeats the Sovereign Pontiff Argentin in his Memoirs published on January 15 (HopeAlbin Michel, 400 pages, 22.90 euros).
Twelve years after his election, women still do not have the right to be ordered priest or deacon, nor therefore to access the functions of bishop, cardinal or pope, and remain excluded from many ecclesial responsibilities.
Despite this thick glass ceiling, the top of the Church begins, a little, to feminize. The percentage of women working at the Curia, the Vatican Government and the Ecclesial Institution, went from 19.3 % to 26.1 % since the election of François in 2013a record. And some have accessed high positions that no woman had hitherto occupied.
Simona Brambilla, first prefect in history
The Italian nun Simona Brambilla (59 years old) was thus appointed on January 6, 2025 prefect of the dicastery for the institutes of consecrated life and the societies of apostolic life, of which she was already secretary (number 2) since the end of 2023. Thus of the first woman in history to take the lead of a dicastery – there are around thirty – the equivalent of a ministry in the government of the Church.
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Source: Lemonde