Pope appoints four women to key roles in Synod of Bishops

ICN/JS

Pope Francis has appointed four women consulters to the Synod of Bishops. Three are religious sisters: Sr Alessandra Smerilli, an Italian economics professor; Sr Maria Luisa Berzosa Gonzalez, director of the Fe y Algeria educational institute in Spain, Sr Nathalie Becquart former director of youth evangelisation for the French Bishops Conference. The fourth appointment is Cecilia Costa, an Italian sociology professor.

The Synod was founded in 1965 by Bl Pope Paul VI to advise Popes. This is the first time women have been appointed to the body.

The role of women in the Church was a recurring theme at the Bishops' Synod on Youth last October.

The next Synod, which takes place in October, will discuss the needs of the Church in the Amazon region.

Pope Francis has appointed several women to key positions in the Vatican since the beginning of his pontificate. In April 2018 he named three female theologians as consulters to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Professor Linda Ghisoni, Professor Michelina Tenace and Professor Laetitia Calmeyn.

The first woman to hold a curial leadership position at the Vatican was Rosemarie Goldie, an Australian laywoman appointed by Bl Pope Paul VI as vice-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Laity in 1967. The first woman to employed by the Vatican in any capacity was seamstress Anna Pezzoli hired in 1915 to work in the 'floreria apostolica', which furnishes and decorates Vatican City. By 1929 women were employed in a variety of academic and clerical positions, especially in the Vatican library but it wasn't until after Vatican II that women began to be employed in more senior roles in Vatican City and the Holy See. Today about one fifth of Vatican employees are women.