Vatican City has been governed by men since it was established as an independent state in 1929. A year ago, however, a woman joined the upper ranks: Barbara Jatta, the first female director of the Vatican Museums.

In the 12 months since her appointment, Ms.Jatta has put her stamp on the role, resisting some of her predecessor’s initiatives and forging her own path.

Ms.Jatta was the only woman on an initial list of six candidates, and she was chosen by Pope Francis. In the post since January, she oversees some 200,000 objects and an array of museums, papal apartments, sculpture courtyards and other sites, including the Sistine Chapel.

The chapel is one of the Roman Catholic Church’s holiest places, where Popes are elected. It is also packed almost daily with ever-larger crowds scrambling to gaze at Michelangelo’s famous frescoed ceiling. The Vatican Museums say visitor numbers in 2017 are expected to reach a record, significantly exceeding the six million that Ms.Jatta’s predecessor, Antonio Paolucci, defined as an annual upper limit. The escalating total pose the toughest challenge to Ms.Jatta’s directorship.

Ms.Jatta is friendly yet firm, and she expresses high ambitions for herself and for the institution. In an interview, she said that she had worked for 20 years in the Vatican Library, leading its prints department from 2010. When she heard of her nomination for the Vatican Museums role, she said, “it came as a shock at first, to face such a big change.”

Regarding her gender, Ms.Jatta said she “didn’t realize what it meant until I started the job. Whenever I attended conferences or public events, so many women would come up to me, saying: ‘We are proud, and you are also, in some way, representing us.’”

Her office, which overlooks the Michelangelo-designed dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, was filled with family pictures, a framed photograph of Pope Francis, and the portrait bust of another predecessor: the neo-Classical sculptor Antonio Canova, the first director of the papal museums.

Ms.Jatta said that art had played a big role in her family: Her mother and sister are art restorers; her grandmother, who was originally from Russia, was a painter; and her paternal ancestors founded an archaeological museum named after the family in Ruvo di Puglia, in southern Italy.

The police officer who died after taking the place of a hostage in France was a practising Catholic who had “experienced a genuine conversion” around 2008.

Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame died on March 24 after volunteering to replace a female hostage during a terrorist attack on the Super U supermarket in Trèbes, southern France, on March 23.

Beltrame left his phone on so that police could hear his conversations with the gunman.

He was shot in the neck by jihadist Radouane Lakdim before police entered the supermarket and killed the Moroccan born French national.

Pope Francis has paid tribute to Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame who has become a hero to the French and a symbol of selfless service inspired by his patriotism and Christian faith.

Beltrame served in Iraq in 2005 and received the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award, in 2012. Last year he was named deputy commander of anti-terror police in the Aude region.

Fr Dominique Arz, national chaplain of the gendarmerie told the French Catholic magazine FamilleChrétienne: “It turns out that the lieutenant-colonel was a practising Catholic. The fact is that he did not hide his faith, and that he radiated it, he bore witness to it. We can say that his act of self-offering is consistent with what he believed. He served his country to the very end, and bore witness to his faith to the very end.”

The website Rorate Caeli compared Beltrame’s sacrifice to that of St Maximilian Kolbe, who died in 1941 after volunteering to take the place of a fellow prisoner condemned to death at Auschwitz.
Beltrame and his fiancée, Marielle, were preparing to receive the sacrament of marriage, according to Fr Jean-Baptiste, one of the Canons Regular of the Mother of God of Lagrasse Abbey.

Despite the chill and gusts of wind in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis welcomed the beginning of spring with an impromptu lesson about gardening and how to grow into being better Christians.

“Does a tree or plant that is diseased bloom well? No! Does a tree or a plant that isn’t watered … bloom well? No. And does a tree or plant with no roots bloom?” he said before delivering his general audience talk March 21.

Christians can learn from what makes spring flowers flourish, the Pope said, because for Christians, their root is Jesus and the water that replenishes those roots are the sacraments and prayer, which makes lives bloom with Christian virtues and good works.

“I wish that this spring would be for you a spring in bloom” and an Easter that blossoms, he said. Offering a saying that is well-known in Argentina, the Pope said.

The Pope said receiving Communion can be done standing “with devotion” or kneeling, whichever has been determined by each bishops’ conference, and Communion can be received on the tongue or, “where it is permitted,” in the hand.