Pope Francis has appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini, 56, an Italian nun, as the first woman governor of the Vatican City State, the Vatican announced Feb. 15. She will take up this post on March 1.
The official announcement confirming her appointment came as Francis was in his bed in the Gemelli Hospital being treated for an infection of the respiratory tract since Feb. 14. It came as no surprise as the pope himself first broke the news during an interview on an Italian television talk show last January.
“The Holy Father passed a good night and slept well, and this morning he had breakfast and read some newspapers,” the Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said in a briefing with journalists on Saturday morning, Feb. 15.
Mr. Bruni confirmed that his doctors are continuing to treat him with “a pharmacological therapy” to counteract the respiratory infection. He said that a medical report will be issued by the doctors later today. He was unable to confirm if the pope would recite the noon-day Angelus prayer on Sunday, Feb.16, from the hospital; he is expected to give news about that later today or tomorrow.
Sister Petrini’s official title will be “President of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State, and President of the Governorate of the Vatican City State.” Hitherto, the president of these two bodies has always been a cardinal, as have the members of the pontifical commission. She will succeed the Spanish cardinal, Fernando Vergez Alzaga, on March 1, the day he turns 80. She has worked closely since November 2021 as secretary general of the governorate.
As president of the pontifical commission she will preside over the six cardinals who are members of that commission, making her the second woman to have the top ranking position over a cardinal. Another Italian nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, also ranks higher than the cardinal who has the number two position of pro-prefect. By giving women the top ranking position over cardinals, Pope Francis has broken a centuries old tradition in the Vatican.
Sister Petrini will work in the large building, which Italians call a “palazzo,” located in the center of the Vatican City State. She will supervise the some two thousand of the state’s employees and be overall responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the city state, including the gendarmerie (law enforcement), the health and postal services, the fire-brigade, the museums and other essential operations in the world’s smallest state.
Sister Rafaella Petrini is a member of the American Institute of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist. She was born in Rome on Jan. 15, 1969 and gained a degree in political science at the LUISS university in Rome, and a doctorate from the Dominican run university of St. Thomas Aquinas, popularly known as the Angelicum, where she taught classes on “welfare economics” and “the sociology of economic processes.” She gained a masters degree in organizational behavior from the University of Hartford in 2001.
From 2005 to 2001, she worked as an official at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, where she was known as a highly efficient organizer. Then, on Nov. 4, 2021, Pope Francis appointed her as secretary general of the governorate of the Vatican City State, the first woman to hold that important position, making her then the highest ranking woman in the smallest state in the world.
Today she holds the even higher position of governor of the Vatican City State.
It is the 88-year-old pontiff’s fourth stay in the Gemelli hospital since he first went there for an operation on July 4, 2021. He was hospitalized after suffering from bronchitis for about 10 days or more in the Vatican where, according to the Italian press, he was being treated with cortisone and, they report, this seems to have contributed to his face being bloated in recent weeks.
The Italian press also reported that earlier this week that Francis went to the Gemelli Hospital’s secondary branch on Tiber Island, about 10 minutes from the Vatican, for medical tests. Yesterday, it was decided that he should go to hospital, where he is expected to remain for several days. Mr. Bruni would not speculate on how long he is expected to remain in hospital.
