One of the most senior women in the Vatican has accepted an honorary doctorate from Australian Catholic University.
Sr Nathalie Becquart XMCJ received a Doctor of the University (Honoris Causa) at the ACU Rome Campus on Thursday, May 28.
The honorary degree recognises the French religious Sister’s contributions to youth ministry and synodality, and for her significant leadership in advancing women and the laity in the Church.
Sr Becquart said she was “deeply moved and grateful” to receive ACU’s highest honour, and dedicated the honorary degree to “all those who work for a Church that listens”.
“I receive it on behalf of all those who work for a Church that listens, that walks together, that places the peripheries at the centre,” Sr Becquart said.
“It is also a beautiful expression of communion between the universal Church and the Church in Australia, whose Plenary Council has been a fruitful, significant synodal experience of recent years.
“Having been particularly touched by my different visits to Australia – my last one in August, which also gave me the opportunity to visit the ACU Brisbane campus – I receive this doctorate as a sign of the special and deep bond I feel with Australia, which has given me and taught me so much.”
Sr Becquart has been a member of the Congregation of Xavières, founded by Claire Monestès in France, since 1995.
She dedicated 32 years to youth ministry work, specifically serving the French Catholic scouting movement, campus ministry and the National Service for the Evangelisation of Youth and Vocations of the French Bishops’ Conference.
In 2021, Sr Becquart became an internationally recognised name when Pope Francis appointed her Under Secretary of the General Secretariat of Synod, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the Vatican at that time.
“I must say from the outset that the titles – ‘most influential woman’, ‘first woman to vote at the Synod’ – always make me uncomfortable as I don’t think I deserve it,” Sr Becquart said.
“What matters to me is the question that Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo, puts to the whole Church: how do we walk together men and women to better serve the mission of the Church?
“That is the legacy I hope to leave: not a glass ceiling shattered, but a Church more faithful to itself by being a more participatory and missionary Church.”
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ACU bestows honorary doctorate on influential Vatican figure Sr Nathalie Becquart (ACU)
