Pope Francis places Raffella Petrini at the head of the Vatican Government

In less than a month and a half, Pope Francis will place Franciscan nun Raffaella Petrini, who currently holds the position of secretary in this same department, as head of the General Secretariat of the Government of Vatican City State.

The change will be effective in March when Petrini will replace the Spanish cardinal in office. Fernando Vergez, who turns 80 in a month and a half.

The news was made public last Sunday by the Holy Father during an interview in the program What’s the weather like? of Italian television. “Now we have many women. For example, to elect bishops on the commission there are three women electing new bishops. The vice governor of the Vatican, who will be governor in March, is a nun. In the Department of Economics, the vice is a nun with two degrees (…). “Women know how to manage better than us,” he said.

Petrini was born in Rome on January 15, 1969. He graduated in Political Science from the International University of Guido Carli Studies and obtained a doctorate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, where he currently works as a professor. He entered the Vatican Curia as an officer in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

This appointment joins others that the Pontiff has made in the past to increase female profiles in leadership positions in the Catholic Church. Earlier this month, Pope Francis appointed the first woman to head a Vatican department.

It’s about Sor Simona Brambilla, former superior general in Italy of the Missionaries of the Consolata, who currently directs the dicastery for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life together with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, who has been named Pro-Prefect.

In 2022, Pope Francis confirmed nun Alessandra Smerilli as prefect and undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, a position she shares with Cardinal Michael Czerny. Both had already led this organization since January 1 on an interim basis after the departure of Cardinal Turkson.

The Vatican Museums have also been directed since 2016 by a woman: Barbara Jatta. A year earlier, the Pope put Mariella Enoc in charge of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, although the current president of this health center of excellence is Tiziano Onesti.