(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 07.10.2023).- The Holy See made public Pope Francis’ appointment of the new Number 2 of one of the Church’s most important Dicasteries: that of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. (DICLSAL).
DICLSAL’s new Secretary is Sister Simona Brambilla, former Superior General of the Consolata Missionaries. She is Italian and replaces Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo — whom the Pope sent to Spain –, in the leadership of the entity concerned with matters of men religious, nuns and consecrated persons worldwide (approximately 1.5 million).
Sister Simona Brambilla was born in Monza, Italy, on March 27, 1965. After graduating as a professional nurse in 1986, she entered the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters in 1988, where she made her first religious profession in 1991. In 1998 she obtained a degree in Psychology from the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University.
After her perpetual profession in 1999, she went to Mozambique, where she dedicated herself to youth pastoral care at the Macua Xirima Studies Center of Maua.
From 2002 to 2006 she was a Professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. From 2005 to 2011 she was General Counsellor of the Institute of the Consolata Missionary Sisters. She received a doctorate in Psychology in 2008 from the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 2011 she was elected Superior General of the Institute of Consolata Missionary Sisters, and re-elected in 2017 until May of 2023. She has been a member of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic life since 2019.
