Pope Francis named three women as members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops on July 13.
The appointments, which the pope previewed in an interview last week, mark the first time that women have served as members of the Vatican department responsible for the world’s episcopal appointments.
Who are the pioneering trio?  María Lía Zervino is the Argentine president general of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations (WUCWO). The umbrella body representing almost 100 groups worldwide was founded in 1910 and represents an estimated eight million Catholic women.
She is a member of an Argentine institute of consecrated life, the Servidoras, founded by Fr. Luis María Boneo.
She wrote: “I dream of a Church that has suitable women as judges in all the courts in which matrimonial cases are processed, in the formation teams of each seminary, and for exer-cising ministries such as listening, spiritual direction, pastoral health care, care for the planet, defence of human rights, etc., for which, by our nature, women are equally or sometimes better prepared than men. Not only consecrated women, but how many lay women in all regions of the globe are ready to serve!”
Sister Raffaella Petrini was   born in Rome on Jan. 15, 1969, Petrini studied political science at the Luiss Guido Carli, a prestigious private university in the Italian capital, before pursuing a doctorate in social sciences at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). She earned a master’s degree in organizational behavior from the University of Hartford in Conn-ecticut in 2001.
Sister Yvonne Reungoat  is T 77-year-old Salesian Sister of Don Bosco has been a member of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life since 2019, when she became one of the first women appointed to the body.
In 1990, she began serving as delegate of the institute’s provinces of Spain and France for West Africa. In 1991, she was elected superior of the African province of Mother of God, based in Lomé, Togo. In a 2012 interview, she said: “My time as a missionary in Africa enriched my vocation, which then developed in a surprising way with my election as visiting councillor, vicar general, and finally superior general.”