Renata Steffens
Sr Mary T Barron in Benin last year with some of the women currently in formation. Photos Courtesy OLA Sisters. The Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) celebrated 150 years last May, but that is not the only big news for the congregation that 2026 brought. Last Thursday, Sr Mary T Barron, Congregational Leader of the OLA Sisters, was appointed as Adjunct Secretary for the Dicastery of Evangelisation; she will also be serving as President of the Pontifical Mission Societies. Sr Barron is the first woman to be appointed to this role, which is effective from January 4, 2027.
The Pontifical Mission Societies are a global network of the Catholic Church, supporting the evangelising mission of local churches around the world through prayer, missionary formation, and the sharing of resources.
The Mission Societies serve the Pope in fostering missionary awareness and solidarity among Catholics worldwide. As president, Sr Barron will coordinate and promote missionary cooperation among local churches worldwide, particularly in regions where the Church is growing and facing significant pastoral challenges.
Sister’s most concrete direct responsibility will be ‘overseeing the system through which missionary funds and support are coordinated and distributed’”
Matt Moran, author and former Chairman of the Board of Misean Cara, explained that, in this role, Sr Barron will be “one of the Vatican’s principal leaders responsible for enabling the Church’s worldwide missionary work.” Mr Moran said that the Sister’s most concrete direct responsibility will be “overseeing the system through which missionary funds and support are coordinated and distributed.”
“The network”, Mr Moran clarified, “serves more than 1,100 mission territories and dioceses worldwide, particularly across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America and parts of Eastern Europe.” He added, “The Societies help make their work possible by providing resources, promoting cooperation and ensuring that mission is understood as a shared responsibility of the universal Church.
“Pope Leo XIV described them in May 2025 as a primary means of awakening missionary responsibility among all the baptised and supporting young Churches,” Mr Moran said.
“A worldwide network enables solidarity between Churches: resources and experience can be shared so that a community’s ability to develop its Christian life is not determined solely by its local wealth.”
Heritage
Sr Barron was born in Drumoghill, Co. Donegal on November 7, 1968, and grew up in Manorcunningham. She holds a master’s degree in public healthcare administration from the Institute for Public Administration in Dublin and in international development from the Kimmage Institute in Dublin.
Speaking about Ireland’s missionary heritage, Sr Barron said that the country has a “remarkable tradition” of mission, which has “contributed so much to the life of the universal Church,” and that she is honoured to represent this heritage.
Linking the Sister’s appointment to his book, The Legacy of Irish Missionaries Lives On, Mr Moran said the appointment illustrates his book’s message: “the Irish missionary tradition remains alive, but its future increasingly lies in supporting, empowering and working alongside local Churches and the people who carry the mission forward.”
Leadership
Her leadership experience is not something new. Sr Barron has been the Congregational Leader of the OLA Sisters since 2018. From 2022 to 2025, she served as President of the Service of Documentation and Study on Global Mission (SEDOS), and from 2023 to 2025 as President of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) in Rome.
Her appointment as the first woman to head the Pontifical Mission Societies is not the first time she finds herself as part of a movement of a changing role of women in a predominantly male Church. In 2023, she was among only 54 women to vote in the Synod on Synodality.
Her appointment is the third by Pope Leo of a woman to a prominent role in the Church, following Francis’ promotion of female leadership. This year, Pope Leo also appointed EWTN News president Maria Montserrat Alvarado to lead Vatican communications, and Sr Alessandra Smerilli as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Sr Barron sees the appointment “as a recognition of the countless women, Religious and lay, who have dedicated their lives to proclaiming the Gospel and serving God’s people in every corner of the world.” She said, “I honour all of them by accepting this role.”
Mission
In 2024, she was appointed a member of the Dicastery for Evangelisation and in 2026, the Sister was named a Consultor to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. However, her life’s work did not start at the Vatican. Sr Barron has many years of missionary work under her belt, living in Nigeria and Tanzania, where she worked with women’s empowerment, pastoral work, and HIV/AIDS-related projects.
I carry their spirit, their wisdom, and their commitment with me into this new responsibility”
For her, this new role is not only a reflection of her own work. This is not for her personally. “Whatever gifts or experience I bring to this ministry have been nurtured through the charism of my Congregation and through the witness of generations of sisters who have devoted their lives to God’s mission,” she said. “I carry their spirit, their wisdom, and their commitment with me into this new responsibility.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic in January 2024 about the Synod and what it represents to the Church, Sr Barron said, “We are in an era of epochal change… As we take the time to truly listen to each other, to pray with what we have heard, and to respond from a deep inner conviction that is of the Spirit, we will live into an epochal change in our Church which will bring us back to the essence of the early Church we find in the Acts of the Apostles, a Church rooted in service for mission.”
Rooted
She said that the Synod invites people to look at their own lives and see “if all we are and do is rooted in service for mission.” She continued, saying that “We are invited to see if our ministries are in the peripheries, in areas of need, or if we have become somewhat comfortable in comfort zones.” In her new role, Sr Barron will have the opportunity to lead and support this missionary Church.
For Mr Moran, Sr Barron’s appointment “represents a significant development: a woman whose leadership has been formed by missionary experience is being entrusted with responsibility for a major worldwide missionary network. This gives contemporary visibility to the contribution of Irish missionaries and how they laid the foundations for the changing missionary landscape.”
Sr Barron said that she is ‘deeply thankful to the Holy Father for the confidence he has placed’ in her”
Congratulating the Sister on her appointment, Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly of Cashel and Emly commented on how “significant” it is that the appointment came in this month, when the Church worldwide celebrates Mission Sunday on October 18.
Also speaking on the importance of her appointment, Bishop Niall Coll of Raphoe said that it “in many ways, [is] a tribute to the countless Irish missionaries, past and present, who have given so generously in service to God’s mission throughout the world.”
Sr Barron said that she is “deeply thankful to the Holy Father for the confidence he has placed” in her, “and for the opportunity to serve the Church in this important missionary ministry.”