The most powerful woman in the Vatican, French nun Nathalie Becquart, accepts that women have hit a stained glass ceiling in the church.

But the former marketing and advertising consultant doesn’t feel limited by the Catholic Church’s rigid position on the ordination of women and said she has found a fulfilling leadership path around it.

In December, she was named on the BBC list of the 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world.

Catholic nun Nathalie Becquart is the most powerful woman in the Vatican.Credit:Louise Kennerley

Speaking in Sydney on Friday, she said she is on a global mission to bring the Pope’s decision-making process closer to the laity.

That process involves listening to what Australian Catholics have to say about the big decisions the church has to make about its future and seeking a consensus.

“I am here, ready to listen, to learn more about the reality of the church here,” she said. “What is very important for me is the Catholic Church has to speak the language of the people.”

Becquart, 54, acknowledges that women’s ordination into the priesthood is not up for negotiation.

“At this moment, at the Vatican and from the point of view of the official teaching of the church, it is closed,” she said.

But as the Pope’s right-hand woman, as the undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, she believes there are other ways for females to play a bigger role in the church.

“There is a strong call today for more women in leadership, more women’s participation, especially in the decision-making process,” Becquart said.

Becquart says there is a need to rebuild trust following the child sex abuse crisis but said it will be a long process.

“We are more and more aware in many countries that the church has failed because there have been abuses and cover ups,” she said.

She accepts the Catholic Church faces a public relations challenge in rebuilding trust and says her background in communications and project management has been useful in her pastoral work and team leadership.

Becquart did not go to Cardinal George Pell’s funeral at St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday, saying she had only just arrived in Sydney from Melbourne that day.

In Rome, she occasionally crossed paths with him, including over lunch, but says she didn’t know him well.

Pell was reportedly the anonymous author of a memo that was critical of the papacy of Pope Francis, accusing him of being silent on moral issues.

While Pope Francis was known as being more pastoral, Becquart was reluctant to talk about the differences between the two men, other than to say the main one was cultural.

“I think [with] what people say or write and how they act, you can’t just judge by what you see outside.”

After graduating from the HEC Paris business school with a major in entrepreneurship, Becquart worked for two years working as a marketing and communications consultant for an NGO.

She joined the Xaviere Sisters in France at the age of 26 after working as a volunteer in Lebanon and realising her calling was in the church.

When the Pope asked her to become an undersecretary in 2021, it was an easy decision. Her appointment is now seen as a watershed moment.

As one of two undersecretaries, she is the first woman to have the right to vote in the synod, making her the most powerful woman in the Vatican.

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