Pope Francis has appointed a religious high school teacher and father of two as Secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.
Gleison De Paula Souza becomes the number two official of the department, which is responsible, among other functions, for the follow-up of world youth day.
The appointment of Mr De Paula Souza as secretary means that three out of the four senior positions of responsibility in this Vatican office are held by laypeople.
In November 2017, Pope Francis appointed two Italian women, also mothers, as the undersecretaries of the department – Professor Gabriella Gambino and Dr Linda Ghisoni.
With the appointment of De Paula Souza, Pope Francis continues to implement the reform of the Roman Curia that he outlined in the constitution “Praedicate Evangelium.”
In that text, Francis significantly separated the power of priestly orders from that of governance in the Roman Curia. In doing so he opened the door for the involvement of laymen and women in roles of greater responsibility in the church.
Mr De Paula Souza, 38, was born in the Brazilian state of Minas Geiras in 1984. As a young man, he joined the Sons of Divine Providence order in 2005 and went to Rome to study.
In January 2014, he wrote a letter to Pope Francis. Soon after, the pope invited him to come to Casa Santa Marta, his residence in the Vatican, for a meeting.
After gaining a bachelor’s degree in theology from the Pontifical Salesian University in 2015, he decided to leave the order the following year at age 32.
He went on to gain a teaching degree in philosophical sciences in 2019 from the Italian state university in Lecce, southern Italy.
He was teaching religion at an Italian high school in Galatina, near the city of Lecce, at the time of his appointment to the Vatican dicastery.
He is married to Elisabetta Macrì, and the couple has two daughters.
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