Sister named to high-level Vatican post
Jan 16, 2005
In a historic breakthrough, a woman has been named to one of the top three positions in a congregation, the most powerful type of Vatican office. The move could defy conventional wisdom under John Paul II that because congregations exercise ecclesiastical power in the name of the pope, their top officials must be clergy.
(National Catholic Reporter, May 7, 2004) Rome - Vatican-watchers say the appointment could also have broad implications for the role of women in the church, especially taken in tandem with other recent "firsts"--the appointment of two women to the International Theological Commission and a woman to head a pontifical academy.
On April 24, John Paul II named Salesian Sr. Enrica Rosanna, a 65-year-old Italian, as undersecretary of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life. The office is commonly known as the "Congregation for Religious," and it has responsibility for the 140,000 religious order priests in the world, 55,000 brothers and 800,000 sisters.
Among other things, Rosanna will now have authority over a staff of 30, including some 15 priests. Rosanna told NCR April 25 that she hopes to bring "a distinctively feminine way of seeing things" to her work.
The Roman curia is composed of three types of offices: congregations, tribunals and councils. Because the congregations exercise what is known as "jurisdiction," meaning the power to issue binding decisions that draw upon the pope's own delegated authority, they have long been regarded as "first among equals" in the Vatican. Each has three superiors: the prefect (a cardinal), a secretary (usually an archbishop), and at least one undersecretary (usually a monsignor).
The extent to which positions that exercise jurisdiction are open to lay people is a debated point.
As recently as last June, a senior Vatican official told NCR that he did not believe women could hold "management" positions in the Roman curia.
"Right now the dicasteries have jurisdiction, and so they participate in episcopal authority. We're a hierarchical organization and power comes from ordination. So for now, there cannot be a woman," said Belgian Cardinal Jan Schotte, at the time head of the Synod. "If the job is redefined, you could have a woman, but then it would not be the same dicastery as we think of now when people say there should be a woman."
Rosanna's nomination comes on the heels of the March 6 appointments of American Sr. Sara Butler of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, and German laywoman Barbara Hallensleben to the International Theological Commission, plus the March 9 nomination of Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon as president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In both cases, it was the first time women have been selected for those roles.
Sister named to high-level Vatican post