Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, is the third woman in history to be nominated to lead a Vatican dicastery.
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named Italian economist Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, to succeed Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Czerny will turn 80 on July 18, while the 51-year-old Salesian sister has been secretary, the No. 2 position at the dicastery, since August 2021. She was previously an undersecretary from March of the same year.
The pope has also appointed a pro-prefect to serve alongside Smerilli: Italian Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, who has been the dicastery’s undersecretary since 2022. The nomination of a bishop to serve as pro-prefect follows a precedent set with the nomination of the first woman prefect — Sister Simona Brambilla, MC, of the religious life dicastery — in early 2025.
Smerilli is a professor of political economy and statistics at the Auxilium Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences and on the board of directors of the Laudato Si’ Higher Education Center, which is led by Baggio.
In 2020, she was one of the principal organizers of the Economy of Francesco online event. She also served in the past as a councilor of the Vatican City State and a member of the short-lived Vatican fundraising commission.
With Smerilli’s nomination, Leo continues his predecessor Pope Francis’ innovation of appointing women to the highest roles at the Vatican, including the appointment of Montserrat Alvarado — currently the president and COO of EWTN News — as the first woman to lead the Dicastery for Communication earlier this month.
Baggio, 61, was both appointed an archbishop and made a cardinal by Pope Francis in late 2024 after working since early 2017 in the human development dicastery, first as undersecretary of the migrants and refugees section alongside Czerny and then as undersecretary of the dicastery following the reform of the Roman Curia in 2022.
Prior to his roles at the Vatican, Baggio taught in Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines, and in Rome. He is also a composer of sacred and liturgical music.
Czerny, who reaches the mandatory retirement age for prefects next month, concludes a term in the leadership of the integral human development office that began with its creation nearly a decade ago.
A Canadian Jesuit born in what was then Brno, Czechoslovakia, Czerny served for years in the Jesuit General Curia in Rome starting in the early 1990s. He was also the personal assistant to Cardinal Peter Turkson from 2010–2016.
In 2017, he started as undersecretary of the migrants and refugees section of the newly-formed Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, with the pope himself as the department’s official head. Czerny was made prefect in 2022.
Pope Francis made him a cardinal in October 2019.
Pope Leo also appointed on June 30 Father Jozef Barlaš as secretary of the human development dicastery.
The Slovakian priest has been undersecretary since November 2025. He has a doctorate in canon law and served as an official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State from 2020–2022.
Smerilli, Baggio, and Barlaš will start their new roles on Sept. 1.
This article was originally published by EWTN News English.
