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Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Pope Francis appoints Sr. Simona Brambilla, an Italian-born religious sister, as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the first woman to be appointed Prefect of a Dicastery of the Holy See. This decision of Pope Francis was announced by the Holy See Press Office.
Sister Simona Brambilla, who will turn 60 on March 27, previously served as the Superior General of the Consolata Missionaries and will now head the Dicastery, of which she has been Secretary since October 2023. Pope Francis also chose Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, 65, former Rector Major of the Salesian Congregation from March 2014 to August 2024, as Pro-Prefect of the same dicastery.
Simona Brambilla was born on March 27, 1965 in Monza. In 1986 she completed her training as a nurse and worked at the Leopoldo Mandic Hospital in Merate. In 1988 she entered the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters and took her temporary vows in 1991. In 1998 she obtained a Licentiate in Psychology from the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1999, she went to Mozambique, where she worked in youth ministry at the Macua Xirima Study Center in Maua. From 2002 to 2006 she was a professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University and received her doctorate in psychology in 2008 with a thesis on evangelization and inculturation in Mozambique.
After serving as general councilor of her institute from 2005 to 2011, she was elected Superior General of the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters on June 7, 2011 for a six-year term, and was re-elected in 2017, until May 2023.
On July 8, 2019, Pope Francis appointed her a member of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. In 2023 she took part in the Synod of Bishops on Synodality. On October 7, 2023, she was appointed Secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life by Pope Francis, which she will now lead as Prefect. (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 6/1/2025)
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