By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
A good friend who, for a variety of reasons, left the Catholic Church many years ago, once told me that despite this ecclesiastical estrangement, he had “kept the saints.” If you wonder what he meant, or why, go see Cabrini.
Cabrini is the 2024 movie about Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini (1850-1917), who arrived in New York City in 1889 only to encounter disease, crime, and impoverished children. She set off on a courageous and compassionate mission to provide housing and health care for society’s most vulnerable people.
Disabled by her own poor health, broken English, and dark skin, as well as by her status as a female Catholic nun living in a man’s world, Cabrini nonetheless used her indomitable spirit and entrepreneurial mind to build an empire of hope unlike anything the world had seen.
As evidence of her universal appeal, consider that Cabrini is distributed by the Latter-day Saint filmmakers who also produce the popular television show about Jesus called The Chosen. Angel Studios, based in Provo, Utah, uses equity crowdfunding to finance original productions that “amplify light.”
Catholic businessman—and the film’s executive producer—J. Eustace Wolfington told The Salt Lake Tribune that despite the movie’s century-old storyline, its social themes resonate “for our times.” In the true spirit of Mother Cabrini, the movie was made as a 501(c)(3) corporation, so that its profits will go to charity.
I first encountered and admired St. Frances Cabrini as a boy, thanks to a First Communion gift from my mother called Picture Book of Saints. In the 1962 book, author/priest Lawrence Lovasik briefly described over a hundred saintly lives, and reminded readers that they could be a saint too “by loving God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself.”
Lovasik’s portrait of Frances Cabrini stood out to me even back then. She came to America with only six fellow sisters and yet built orphanages, schools, and hospitals all over the world. And in 1946, Pope Pius XII made her the first American citizen canonized as a saint.
In my humble opinion, the Catholic Church should lean more into the stories of the saints as a way to reach today’s youthful audiences disaffected with religion. The saints rival the Avengers and other popular comic characters for inspiring stories, wondrous acts, and justice-seeking deeds.
Back in the 1960s, I could open my picture book and read about…an environmentally-conscious man who spoke with birds and wolves and called all creatures brother and sister (St. Francis of Assisi), a brave woman who led a fifteenth century army to victory (St. Joan of Arc), a devoted man who cared for the slaves in the West Indies (St. Peter Claver), and a generous princess who shared her financial resources with the poor and built a hospital annex onto her castle (St. Elizabeth of Hungary).
Today, you can add to that impressive list…a man who stood up to a government that was killing and oppressing its own people (St. Oscar Romero), a woman who saved dying people from street gutters and held their hands so they could pass with love and dignity (St. Teresa of Kolkata), and a man who lived with and cared for the lepers that society shunned (St. Damien of Molokai).
The new Angel Studios film tells Mother Cabrini’s story in a similar compelling manner. Yet, some Catholic critics have huffed and puffed and panned the movie for not depicting her as being Catholic enough.
Seriously? Sometimes, I think we Catholics can be our own worst enemies.
Over the last quarter century, most news stories and media about the Catholic Church have been negative, and in the case of the child abuse scandal and cover-up, deservedly so.
I tried to balance that negative trend with Monastery Mornings, a 2021 memoir about my wonderful boyhood growing up with Catholic monks at a rural Northern Utah monastery. That well-received book, however, only reached a limited audience.
Now there is a movie playing on big screens all across the country that shows an American Catholic woman doing admirable and heroic work because of her faith.
Catholics should embrace Cabrini with a vigorous hug and a full-throated “thank you” to its producers and distributors. If you are a Catholic who wants to fall in love with your religion again, go see Cabrini.
But this movie is not just for Catholics.
If you’ve lost faith in the wisdom of the 1883 Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty—“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”—go see Cabrini.
If you think the unwashed disabled immigrant of color can bring nothing to America, go see Cabrini.
If you think religion has little or nothing to offer the world, go see Cabrini.
If you doubt that humanity can address its most vexing problems, go see Cabrini.
Or, if you just want to see an uplifting movie about the awesome power unleashed by simple acts of kindness, go see Cabrini.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
