Pope Francis has named Francesca Di Giovanni, a longtime Vatican official, as an undersecretary in the Vatican's foreign ministry office, making her the first woman to hold a managerial position at the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The Vatican announced on Wednesday that within the Vatican Secretariat of State's Section for Relations with States, Di Giovanni will head the multilateral sector, which deals with intergovernmental organizations and multilateral treaties.
With the new appointment, the Vatican foreign ministry, led by Archbishop Paul Gallagher, will have two undersecretaries. Di Giovanni will serve as undersecretary alongside Mgr Miroslaw Wachowski, who will continue to work in the area of bilateral diplomacy.
