'Cabrini' film tells origin of first US citizen saint: What to know about Mother Cabrini

The film "Cabrini," in theaters Friday on International Women's Day, details the story of a woman many don't know by name.

But Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini should be more celebrated.

An Italian immigrant and missionary, she's credited with creating 67 institutions including orphanages, schools and hospitals and becoming the first U.S. citizen to be named a saint by the Catholic Church.

Alejandro Monteverde, who also directed last year's "Sound of Freedom," didn't know much about Cabrini when the opportunity to work on the film arrived, just as the COVID pandemic shutdown happened. "I had no idea about her life," he told USA TODAY.

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As he learned about Cabrini – born in 1850, she immigrated to New York in 1889 – Monteverde "realized she was a warrior."

"This was a woman who came to a country where women had no rights, literally to vote or even to own land ... and was able to build, some say, an empire as big as any Rockefeller or Vanderbilt at a time when women were completely voiceless," Monteverde said. "I saw this story as the ultimate underdog story."

Here's what you should about "Cabrini," the woman and the film.

How to watch 'Cabrini'

"Cabrini" hits more than 3,000 theaters in North America on Friday, March 8. You can find theaters near you on the Angel Studios website.

The film stars Italian actress Cristiana Dell’Anna ("Toscana," "The Hand of God") as Mother Francesca Cabrini, John Lithgow ("Killers of the Flower Moon") as Mayor Gould, and David Morse ("The Last Thing He Told Me") as Archbishop Corrigan.

Who was Francesca Cabrini?

Maria Francesca Cabrini was born prematurely in northern Italy near Milan on July 15, 1850. As a slight of build and sickly child, she nearly drowned, which gave her a lifelong fear of water, the National Catholic Register reported.

Her health problems continued when as a schoolteacher, who also tended to the sick, she contracted smallpox. Her efforts to join a religious order were rebuffed, but in 1874 she took over an orphanage in nearby Codogno.

Six years later, the bishop asked her to start a new order, The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. "Its international mission would become her life’s work," reported Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities in its Spring 2023 issue.

Cabrini, who envisioned an international religious caretaking network of the young and poor, wanted to begin in China. But Pope Leo XIII asked her to go "not to the East, but to the West,” to help Italian immigrants in New York, according to the website of the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine NYC.

What is 'Cabrini' about?

The film "Cabrini" details the challenges she and her fellow sisters faced upon arrival in New York in 1889. But they prevailed establishing an orphanage, schools and a hospital. The Columbus Hospital, opened by the religious order in 1896, would become a vital treatment facility. Eventually renamed the Cabrini Medical Center, it closed in 2008.

"It's a story about a very strong woman, powerful and strong-willed especially, who had such strong beliefs and ideals and vision for a different reality," Dell’Anna, who stars as Cabrini, told USA TODAY.

Cabrini's story should be a message to women to "trust our guts, to trust our instincts," she said. As women, "there's always someone, that's normally a man, who would have a stronger opinion about things and we should trust that instead of us. Cabrini is the proof of the opposite."

Cabrini's travels throughout the U.S. took her to cities including Chicago, Denver and New Orleans; internationally, she traveled to many countries including Argentina, Brazil Costa Rica, Panama, England and Spain.

Despite her fear of water, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean 23 times. She had tickets to sail on the Titanic, but her plans changed and she did not board the fated ship, the NCR reported.

How did Francesca Cabrini become a saint?

Mother Cabrini – who took the name Frances Xavier in 1877 when she took her vows to honor the saint – became a U.S. citizen in Seattle in 1909. At age 67, she died in Chicago on December 22, 1917 of chronic endocarditis. Over the years, hospitals, universities, schools and housing projects such as the Cabrini-Green development in Chicago have borne her name.

In 1946, Pope Pius XII waived the then-traditional 50-year canonization waiting period to make Cabrini – who was credited with several healing miracles – the first U.S. citizen to be named a saint.

“She gathered endangered youth in safe houses, and taught the holy and rightful principles. She consoled the spirit of the imprisoned, giving them the comfort of life eternal,” he said, notes the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus site. “She consoled the sick and the infirm gathered in hospitals, and cared for them assiduously. Especially towards immigrants, who had left their own homes ... did she extend a friendly hand, a sheltering refuge, relief and help.”

Her remains rest at the St. Francis Cabrini Shire in New York City and her heart is preserved in Codogno, Italy, according to the shrine.

Four years after Cabrini was canonized, she was named Patroness of Immigrants.

The issue of immigration makes this film timely, Monteverde admits.

But Mother Cabrini "was about the immigrant, the human being," he said. "Whether it's an immigrant or a homeless person, which is another thing that is very topical right now, it's very relevant. We're getting used to it and it's not normal. ... That loss of dignity is fortunately (what the movie) is pointing out."

Watch the 'Cabrini' trailer

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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