Simona Brambilla

Simona Brambilla (born 27 March 1965) is an Italian Catholic religious sister who serves as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life since 2025. She is a member of the Consolata Missionaries and is the first woman to head a department of the Roman Curia. Brambilla led the women's branch of the Consolata Missionaries from 2011 to 2023 and became the first female secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life in 2023.

Early life Brambilla was born in Monza, in Lombardy, on 27 March 1965. She obtained a diploma in nursing 1986, She entered the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of Consolata in 1988 and made her first religious profession in 1991. She received a licentiate in psychology from the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1998. and elected to a second term in 2017, In July 2023, Pope Francis chose Brambilla to participate in the Synod on Synodality.

On 8 July 2019, Pope Francis named her and six others as the first women members of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. On 7 October 2023, Pope Francis appointed her the first female secretary of that Dicastery. She is the second woman to hold this rank in a dicastery of the Roman Curia after Alessandra Smerilli at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, while two other women hold the same title at other departments (not dicasteries): Nathalie Becquart at the Synod of Bishops and Raffaella Petrini at the Governorate of Vatican City State.

On December 13, 2024, Pope Francis named her and María Lía Zervino along with two cardinals as his appointees to the 16th Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod. Brambilla and Zervino were the first women appointed to that role. On 6 January 2025, Pope Francis named her Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. With this appointment, she became the first woman to head a department of the Roman Curia. Her term was suspended automatically with the death of Pope Francis, but was renewed provisionally by Pope Leo XIV.

Selected writings Insights from the experience of a women's missionary congregation in dialogue with Teresa of Lisieux