There is a long way to go before women’s voices are satisfactorily integrated into the central leadership of the church.

Besides taking up the challenge of exploring new frontiers of evangelization in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Brazilian women religious have also become evangelizers of the “old continent,” Europe, where female vocations have radically declined in recent decades.

Increasing the visibility of women and tapping the wisdom they offer will surely encourage laypeople around the world. Religious sisters and nuns were ranked more trustworthy than bishops, priests and the Vatican in a recent survey of U.S. Catholics sponsored by America.

To date women haven’t been able to vote—not even the religious superiors who participate as representatives of the world’s 641,000 nuns.

The appointment makes her the highest ranking woman in the Roman Curia.

Mary Haddad, R.S.M., the C.E.O. and president of the Catholic Health Association, agrees that more must be done now to halt the advance of the Delta variant.