Pope appoints woman, Sister Raffaella Petrini, Vatican secretary general

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This function of Vatican Secretary General has until now has always been reserved for a bishop. Now it’s time for Sister Raffaella Petrini, a 52-year-old Italian woman, both woman of God, economist, doctoral student in political science and perfectly English-speaking.

Secretary General, that means that she will supervise the Vatican Museums, the post office, the police, and more generally all administrative operations.

In the Vatican, an eminently male institution, the feminization of the hierarchy is a reality. Pope Francis wishes to promote greater gender equality in the Church. He has said on several occasions that he wanted women to play a more important role. Last year, a woman thus became the equivalent of the Vatican’s foreign minister. This year also the nominations followed one another. In February, a nun (a Frenchwoman, Nathalie Becquart), was appointed undersecretary of the synod of bishops. Very strategic: the Synod of Bishops is the body which studies the major questions of doctrine.

This summer, the Pope also propelled an Italian to a post of “number 2” of the Vatican, secretary of the dicastery for human development (it is a question of piloting the services of the Holy See on the question of migrants, economy and ecology).

Today, six women occupy positions of high responsibility until then reserved for bishops. Obviously they are still very much in the minority but locks are being jumped one after the other. Six women chosen because they are women, and for their skills: this feminization movement goes hand in hand with a desire to professionalize the Roman Curia.

In January, the Pope also amended the law to allow women to be readers in liturgies, altar servers and communion distributors. There again positions hitherto exclusively reserved for men. The message is pretty self-explanatory.

According to the Association Femmes au Vatican, women now represent 22% of Vatican employees, or around 1,000 out of the 4,500 employees in the service of the Pope. Even if, as everywhere, the assistants are more numerous than the directors. And that inequalities and discrimination persist.

However, we are far from seeing women priests. In 2016, the Pope created a commission to study the history of women deacons during the early years of the Catholic Church, in a process that could have potentially paved the way for women to take up this role today. hui, in any case that is what the reformers of the Vatican hope for.

But the conclusions of this commission were not judged to live up to expectations. The Pope appointed another one last year and not much progress has been made on this issue, which arouses much reluctance, both inside and outside the Vatican. If the Holy See is not yet a feminist, in any case it wants to prove that it is no longer a misogynist.


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