ROME — Pope Francis has named Sister Simona Brambilla as prefect of the department responsible for consecrated life in the Church, the first woman chosen to head up a major Vatican office.

On Monday, when the Church celebrated the Epiphany — when three magi came to adore the newborn Christ child — the pontiff appointed the 59-year-old Italian as prefect of the “Dicastery for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.”

Sister Brambilla, the former superior general of the Consolata Missionaries, will run the department with the assistance of Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime as pro-prefect. As an ordained prelate, Fernández Artime will celebrate Mass and perform other sacramental functions when necessary.

The pope has repeatedly expressed his desire to increase women’s visibility in leadership roles, and enacted reforms in 2022 making it possible for laypeople, including women, to lead Vatican departments, a role previously reserved for Cardinals and Archbishops.

In 2019, he appointed seven women as members of the Vatican office for consecrated and religious life. Later, Sister Brambilla was named secretary of the office and now has been elevated to prefect.

In 2016, the pope named Barbara Jatta as director of the Vatican Museums, and in 2022, he appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini as Secretary General of the Governorate, a role previously held by bishops.

Francis has repeatedly upheld the Catholic teaching that Christ intentionally instituted a male priesthood, while insisting that overemphasis on ordination expresses a form of “clericalism” and undervalues the essential contribution of laypeople and consecrated men and women.

In a 2023 interview, the pope reiterated that “holy orders is reserved for men,” reaffirming perennial Catholic teaching.

Commenting on the possibility of women deacons, Francis said this would be difficult due to the diaconate being “the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”

“I think we would undermine the essence of the Church if we considered only the priestly ministry, that is, the ministerial way,” he said, stressing that women mirror Jesus’s bride the Church.

“The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important,” he said.