Sister Raffaella Petrini, the highest-ranking woman in the Vatican City State, discussed her trailblazing career and leadership lessons at St. Thomas More Chapel last Sunday.
Oscar Miñoso-Rendón
Staff Writer, The Buckley Beacon
On Sunday, November 16, Sister Raffaella Petrini FSE, the highest-ranking woman in the Vatican City State, addressed a packed crowd at St. Thomas More Catholic Center at Yale—offering her reflections on leadership, complementarity, and solidarity to students and parishioners. During her talk, Petrini drew heavily from her experience as President and Secretary General of the Governorate of Vatican City State, being the first woman to ever hold either position.
Petrini opened her talk with a citation of Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, author of Consuming Life, “I consume therefore I am.” With his critique of consumer culture as a starting point, Petrini posed what she referred to as one of the central issues facing us all today: whether we will choose to exercise our freedom in the service of competition or in the service of solidarity.
“Competition encourages people to advance their position by imposing their interests and needs on others,” Petrini said. “Solidarity, on the other hand, presupposes that people can live together cooperatively, pursuing, together, happiness.”
Our attitude towards this issue, she suggested, has a tremendous impact not only on how we lead others, but the choices we make in every facet of our lives.
Petrini’s lecture comes just weeks after Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation, in which he called for a “kingdom of justice, fraternity and solidarity” with special care for migrants and the poor. The document signals that Leo’s pontificate is in pastoral and ideological alignment with his predecessor, Pope Francis, with an emphasis on synodality, social justice, and a care for the vulnerable.
Since the Lateran Treaty of 1929, Vatican City has existed as a sovereign territorial state, protecting the independence of the Roman Pontiff in his pastoral mission. Spanning just over 100 acres and with fewer than 1,000 residents, the Vatican City State might be the smallest sovereign country in the world, but as Petrini noted—due to its ties to the moral authority of the Church—the city-state’s vast impact cannot be overstated.
“Structurally and infrastructurally [Vatican City] is a complex organization, and it has a profound impact because of the moral authority that it represents,” and because it gives “the Holy Father a piece of land, which would allow him to be independent and relate freely to every country in the world.”
A considerable amount of Petrini’s lecture focused on the distinctive qualities that women could offer the Church in positions of leadership: citing an innate capacity of women to care for people grounded in motherhood, “a willingness to accept new life,” “to protect the vulnerable in any organization,” and “to reconcile justice with care.” Echoing statements by Pope Francis regarding a complementary but equal dignity of men and women, Petrini invited leaders not to erase difference, but to embrace multidisciplinarity—bringing together differences in talents, abilities, and vocations for the benefit of the whole.
Petrini also spoke of the need for leaders to encourage more horizontal structures of authority rather than strictly rigid vertical structures, encouraging solidarity, greater participation, and trust within a group. To Petrini, leaders emerge for the common good, and as such have special responsibilities to care for the people entrusted to them. Proper servant leadership means “supporting the integral human development of the people who make those structures work.” It combines the effective realization of an organization’s mission with a “management of care,” inspiring hope and integrity as well as strong performance.
“I believe that a unified and collaborative attitude of care … can greatly improve efficiency in an organization. I think that this approach is even more important in an ecclesial structure,” Petrini remarked.
In support of this point, Petrini drew from the work of the Italian economist, Luigino Bruni, challenging us once more to choose solidarity over competition. She cautioned against a “mechanistic model” of management, which, in separating private life from the workplace, produces a detached, competitive culture, leaving its members aching for recognition and belonging. Instead, she urged leaders to promote a “humanistic” or “human-centered model,” with genuine care for members’ lives and their personal growth.
Referencing Pope Leo XIV’s recent Pentecost homily, or a sermon, Petrini noted the essential co-relationality of all creation and human persons, “What we call ‘history’ only takes place as coexistence.” “Human relationships,” she said, “are essential to each of us,” they are the means by which we grow.
Sister Raffaella Petrini FSE is an Italian member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and was appointed to the position of President of the Governorate of Vatican City State by Pope Francis in February. She serves as the administrative head of the Vatican City’s structure under the oversight of the Holy See.