Alessandra Smerilli is a 51-year-old Salesian nun and economist whom Francis made in 2021 the first female secretary of a Dicastery, the same one that she will now direct by decision of Leo XIV.

The nun and economist will assume her new position on September 1, as confirmed this Tuesday by the Holy See in a statement, and will succeed Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny in the position.

She will be accompanied in the direction of the dicastery by a pro-prefect, Cardinal Fabio Baggio, who will also have the special charge of managing the 'Laudato Sì' Higher Education Center, an entity inspired by Pope Francis' environmental encyclical.

The new secretary of the Dicastery, 'number two', will be the Slovak priest Jozef Barlaš.

The mission of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development

The Dicastery for Integral Human Development was established in 2016 to promote the development of people, justice, peace, care for the environment and all types of issues related to charity, human rights and help to those in need.

Her promotion as prefect is part of a process in which in recent years the Vatican has been incorporating women into positions of responsibility in the Roman Curia.

In this way, the nun will become the third woman to head a Dicastery.

The others are the nun Simona Brambilla, prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, although like Smerilli she exercises her position accompanied by a man, the Spanish cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime.

And the one who from November will be the prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, the Mexican Montse Alvarado, the first lay woman to direct Vatican communication.