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Cabrini and the value of persistence
By Terry A. Hurlbut
This weekend, the movie Cabrini had its public release. (Cabrini, dir. Alejandro Monteverde; with Cristiana dell’Anna, Romana Maggiora Vergano, David Morse, Giancarlo Giannini, John Lithgow, Jeremy Bobb, et al.; Angel Studios, 2024.) No doubt residents of New York City, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, and many other American cities will recognize the name, usually attached to a hospital or orphanage. But they are not likely to connect the name with the feisty five-foot woman who made many politicians and mavens remember that name, often with gnashing of teeth. This film fills that void, or at least should inspire people to research her story. Those who do will get an object lesson in the value of persistence in the face of small-minded opposition.
Cabrini in real life
Francesca Saverio Cabrini, who later Americanized her name to Frances Xavier Cabrini, had a strike against her from birth. Born two months premature, she suffered from underdeveloped lungs – but would surprise at least one doctor who attended her, by outliving his wildest estimate of her lifespan. That was only one way in which she surprised everybody with whom she dealt.
She is the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In fact she always wanted to be a missionary. The film portrays a real-life scene in which she fashioned lots of paper boats and launched them into a canal, imagining each to be carrying missionaries to faraway lands.
She established her first orphanages and schools in Lombardy, but always wanted to lead a mission to China. In September 1887 Pope Leo XIII did send her on a mission – to New York City. Why His Holiness chose to send her there, is not entirely clear. But in actual fact, the Pope sent a letter of reprimand to Michael Corrigan, Archbishop of New York, calling him on the carpet for his shameful treatment of Italian immigrants in that city. The Archbishop might have regarded her as Pope Leo’s proxy, and at first he disinvited her – after she’d already sailed. Cabrini persisted – and started a movement that would spread from New York all over the world – including to China.
Final years
In 1909 she became a citizen of the United States. Eight years later she died at the age of 67. At first she was buried at the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum which she founded in West Park, New York. But eventually, Church authorities exhumed her remains as part of a process of beatification and eventual canonization. Her remains – except for various body parts preserved as relics – lie at her major shrine in the Hudson Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.
Technically she is the first U.S. citizen to become a Catholic saint. In 1950, Pope Pius XII recognized her as the patron saint of immigrants. New York wags often regard her as an effective intercessor for finding a parking space.
She lived in New York City! She understands traffic!
Cabrini the film
The same production team that produced Sound of Freedom, now working for Angel Studios, produced this film. Angel Studios is dedicated as much to quality as to powerful messages, and this film is no exception. Alejandro Monteverde essentially does for women what he did for men in Sound of Freedom: give them a respectable heroine. How appropriate, then, that Angel should release this film on the weekend of International Women’s Day.
Cristiana dell’Anna makes the perfect Mother Cabrini. Furthermore, as she makes her case to Pope Leo, the Archbishop, and eventually to the Mayor of New York, one can almost hear Jesus preaching His parable about the unrighteous judge who finally gives a widow what she demands, just to get her out of his hair.
The men who come to know Mother Cabrini, almost to their regret, have top-flight actors portraying them as well. Giancarlo Giannini – in a vast improvement over the soft-core porn he made for Lina Wertmüller in the Seventies – portrays Pope Leo as a wily, clever politician, sending this diminutive but feisty nun to take the obstreperous Archbishop of New York down a peg or two. (The film doesn’t actually tell us about Pope Leo reprimanding the Archbishop in writing before Cabrini sailed to New York.) David Morse is equally effective as the Archbishop, always playing the political game only to have Cabrini wear him down.
Composites
John Lithgow portrays a possible composite of New York Mayors Abram Hewitt and Hugh Grant. And what a last name he has: Gould, as in Jay! Director Monteverde leaves us guessing. Did the arsonists who torched Columbus Hospital (with Cabrini in it, barely escaping suffocation) act on their own? Or did “Mayor Gould” put them up to it? Never mind. Gould is a politician, and he would not care to risk such an accusation with an election coming up. (In those days New York’s residents elected their Mayors for two-year terms.)
Jeremy Bobb plays New York Times Reporter Theodore Calloway – himself a composite of every sympathetic reporter Cabrini managed to recruit. This being the era of Yellow Journalism, the “leveraging” of the press is an entirely realistic proposition.
Romana Maggiora Vergano plays a prostitute with a struggle of her own. Her choice of profession fills here with shame, and she presents the perfect picture of a sinner wondering whether anything could make her clean. (The answer, as the hymn title says, is: Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. Furthermore, Robert Lowry wrote that hymn thirteen years before the film’s events.) Cabrini offers her hope, and treats her with a dignity she never received from anyone. That empowers her to walk away from “The Life.” Note that no historical warrant exists for this character. She could be another composite, or she could simply represent every woman who needed courage to walk away from exploitation.
Inspiration
All things considered, Cabrini shows what anyone, male or female, can do with enough persistence and determination. Mother Cabrini is an inspiration to anyone facing impossible odds – and small-minded people who won’t do the right thing even when they know what it is. And this film will stand as one of the few quality works of film anyone is making today.
Link to:
The IMBb listing for Cabrini the film:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14351082/?ref_=ttfc_fc_ttvv