Sister to lead Vatican’s human development office

By CathNews New Zealand

July 3rd, 2026

Sister Allesandra Smerilli (Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development/Facebook)

Pope Leo XIV has named an Italian religious sister to head the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Source: CruxNow.

Sr Alessandra Smerilli was second-in-command in the office under the outgoing Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Jesuit appointed by Pope Francis, who will turn 80 in July.

Cardinal Czerny had served in the Dicastery first as a priest and then as a cardinal with special responsibilities for the Dicastery’s section for migrants, before getting the leadership position in 2022.

The office Sr Smerilli is now set to lead is responsible not only for migrants, but also for ecology and human development.

The Integral Human Development office was the first of the “super-dicastery” conglomerates created during the Pope Francis era. It combined the former Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace, Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers and the humanitarian relief office called Cor Unum.

The 51-year-old Sr Smerilli is a Salesian Sister of Don Bosco and a trained economist with a post-doctoral degree in political economy and statistics from the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences Auxilium.

Pope Leo has also appointed Cardinal Fabio Baggio as “pro-prefect” of the dicastery, with special responsibility for the Laudato Si’ Higher Education Center, part of the Borgo Laudato Si’ project at Castel Gandolfo.

The appointments were announced by the Holy See on June 30 and will take effect on September 1, 2026, Vatican News reported.

Sr Smerilli is now the third woman to head a major Vatican dicastery, America Magazine reported.

The first was Sr Simona Brambilla MC, who was appointed by Pope Francis as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in 2025. The second was Maria Montserrat Alvarado, a Mexican-American lay woman and president of EWTN News, who was appointed by Pope Leo as head of Vatican communications on June 2 and will take up that post on November 1.

FULL STORY

Pope appoints woman to head development dicastery (CruxNow/Associated Press)

Sister Smerilli new Prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development (Vatican News)

Pope Leo appoints Italian sister to top Vatican post (America)