Spanish
Vatican City.- The Pope Leo XIV has appointed the Italian religious Tiziana Merletti as secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life, following Francis's path of appointing women to head Vatican institutions.
Sister Merletti, 66, was the superior general of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, and will now be part of the direction of the dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Holy See reported this Thursday.
As of today, this dicastery is headed by the prefect, Simona Brambilla, accompanied by a pro-prefect, the Spanish Salesian cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime.
Sister Brambilla was in fact the first woman to hold the position of prefect of a Vatican dicastery or 'ministry', chosen last January by Pope Francis.
The new pontiff thus follows in the footsteps of his predecessor in choosing women for high-ranking positions in the Roman Curia. The first secretary of a dicastery was Alessandra Smerilli, appointed in August 2021 in the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Sister Brambilla was also secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and now will be succeeded by Merletti.
Following his election on May 8th, Leo XIV decided to provisionally keep all the positions in the Curia.
In addition, Francis appointed the first female president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, also a nun, Raffaella Petrini.
About Sister Merletti
Sister Merletti was born on September 30, 1959, in the town of Pineto (center) and, after entering the convent, in 1984 she graduated in Law from the University of Teramo, later earning a doctorate in Canon Law from the Lateran University in Rome.
Between 2004 and 2013 she was the superior general of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor and currently teaches at the Faculty of Canon Law at the Antonianum University in Rome.
