#cabrini

[footballfaces]

Cabrini (Juventus)

[nighttimedaydreamer]

All & Everyone, Everyone & All, meet Francesca Saverio Cabrini, my new human hero.

She accomplished so much in her lifetime, and I strive to do as much good in the world as she did.

Recently, Angel Studios made an entire film about her, and I think showing it in theatres during March was very intentional. I cried while watching it, which doesn't happen with a lot of films. It was fabulous, and I highly recommend you see it.

Cabrini was an Italian nun who lived in a time when Italian immigrants were hated by the people already living in America.

As a teen, when she first wanted to become a nun, she was denied several times by different places because she had a weak constitution due to a near-death experience she had as a child, when she almost drowned.

Denied her request to start and lead a mission in China, she was allowed to go to New York, to start an orphanage there.

Once there, in a town called Five Points, she found that even the rats had it better than the children in the streets, most of which were Italian immigrants. She started the orphanage with what little she had, but it became quickly apparent that there wasn't nearly enough room.

Despite great odds, she founded several orphanages, and eventually even fought to establish a hospital, hiring mostly Italians, with the aim to provide the highest services, to both the American socialite and Italian immigrant, and run entirely by women.

She went on to found many hospitals of the same nature, all over the world, even deep in China where she had originally longed to serve.

She had to fight every moment of her life to be allowed to do good, simply because faithless men did not believe what she proposed was even possible, much less worth it.

She was not always alone, though. She made genuine friends along the way, and it's important to know that she embarked on the journey with fellow Sisters by her side. She did not try to do things alone. She relied on their support many times, as any wise, good leader ought.

Remember her name, and her example, and teach all those you know about this incredible person who deserves far more recognition.

To learn more about her, I highly recommend you watch the film, and you can also read her Wikipedia article:

Cabrini (2024) | Official Website | Now Playing In Theaters

Francesca Cabrini risks everything when she petitions New York's mayor to house the city’s orphans.

Frances Xavier Cabrini - Wikipedia

[apesoformythoughts]

'Mother Cabrini is one of those saints whose extraordinary feats can only be attributed to something miraculous, to something beyond any human being's most noble of intentions or earnest efforts. Seriously, how can a small, sickly person—who was told by her doctors that she wouldn't live past her thirties (she died at 67)— found over 67 hospitals across North and South America with no regular source of income? People like her make me wonder how secular humanists chock up such supernatural acts of charity to mere "benevolence" […]

All that being said, I must admit to how painful it was to watch Angel Studios' rendering of her story. The film smacked of all of my worst pet peeves: blatant and simplistic moralizing, kitschy sentimental piety, and a flimsy commitment to artistic integrity. It managed to take the story of an Italian Catholic and pass it through the food processor of the American Protestant imagination...so as to make it easier to digest for American audiences, I suppose [...]

My main purpose of pushing Paglia and Wilde's line of thought is to emphasize that art should not "spoon feed" the right moral conclusions to viewers. Rather, it should provoke us to contemplate the nature of humanity, morality, and God...and to arrive at the answers ourselves—trusting in our intelligence and good will rather than spoon-feeding us like dumb children. Conveying a "good" moral message does not make up for making a crappy piece of art. It especially pisses me off when Christians do this. Good Christian art should not be preachy. A good piece of Christian art should bank on its inherent beauty to provoke viewers to pursue the Good, rather than telling them what is Good.'

— Stephen G. Adubato: "'Cabrini,' 'American Fiction,' & the American aversion to subtlety"

[myremnantarmy]

"𝘉𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘦..."

[filmap]

Cabrini Alejandro Monteverde. 2024

Monastery Badia di San Sebastiano, Località Badia, 03011 Alatri FR, Italy See in map

See in imdb

[abwwia]

Cabrini

Cabrini is a 2024 American biographical drama film directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde and written by Rod Barr, based on a story by both. The film depicts the life of Catholic missionary Francesca Cabrini, portrayed by Cristiana Dell'Anna, as she encounters resistance to her charity and business efforts in New York City. Cabrini explores the sexism and anti-Italian bigotry faced by Cabrini and others in New York City in the late 19th century.

Cabrini was released in the United States on March 8, 2024, by Angel Studios. While it received mostly positive reviews, the film lost money, grossing $20.5 million worldwide against a $50 million budget.

Cristiana Dell'Anna (born 24 August 1985) is an Italian television, stage and film actress.

Cristiana Dell'Anna as Cabrini

Frances Xavier Cabrini MSC (Italian: Francesca Cabrini (birth name), July 15, 1850 – December 22, 1917), also known as Mother Cabrini, was a prominent Italian-American religious sister in the Roman Catholic Church. She was the first American to be recognized by the Vatican as a saint.

[moviemunchies]

The director of Sound of Freedom (full disclosure: I haven’t seen that movie), which became the darling of A Very Right Wing Audience, made a movie starring a saint, the message of which is that the system is terrible to immigrants in the US, and you shouldn’t treat them like trash.

I have a lot of thoughts, guys.

Cabrini tells the story of Mother Saint Frances Cabrini, an Italian religious sister who wanted to start missionary orphanages in China and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The Pope convinces her that she start working in the West, first–specifically in New York City, where Italian immigrants live in slums and are shunned by the populace, including the local diocese’s administration. Undaunted, Mother Cabrini charges forward to build her orphanage, whether or not she’ll get support from the city, the press, or the Church.

I kind of want to talk about the critical conversation that surrounded this movie.

Obviously, a film featuring a saint as its protagonist will get attention from Catholic outlets, and that’s where I saw most of the reviews. There was a noticeable common thread among Catholic critics that even though it’s about a canonized saint, a religious sister, and the character’s explicitly Catholic in the movie, her faith is not explored as her motivation, and it doesn’t really emphasize God working through her. We Catholics do not believe that we accomplish holy tasks based on our own power–we do it through God’s grace.

This movie, on the other hand, understandably makes it so that Mother Cabrini is the prime mover of events, though she certainly does have faith. But for Catholics, her reverence for God should be more emphasized, and her crediting and trusting in Him should be more explicit. I understand that in order to make it appeal to a wider (if still primarily Christian) audience, this was toned down, though I don’t know if it was the best idea.

My family and I also noted, while watching the film, that Frances Cabrini’s backstory is not really explored in a comprehensive way. Okay, fine, the movie’s not about that, and there’s enough to go off of. What’s a little more frustrating is that the sisters she leads in her efforts at building an orphanage are… look, I don’t know if they even have names in the film. I don’t remember much about them, other than that they’re there to back up the main character.

There are, however, not-so-legitimate criticisms I’ve seen. The Pillar talked a bit about it in one of their posts, but did not go into a full review because their writers are reporters of Catholic news (and they do very good work on that front, being unafraid of talking about scandal and asking hard questions). The opinion of the editor there was that, along with the above criticism, the antagonists were caricatures of patriarchal corruption, being essentially douchey men, which he felt was putting all the problems faced by the characters on men.

Which… yeah, because she’s running up against corrupt or uncaring systems and institutions, which at the time are all run… by men. 

Maybe this is because I recently read Burn It Down, but taking issue with this feels like missing the point of the movie. You can say all you want that the systems in place aren’t just the fault of some men in charge, but those men in charge hold a lot of responsibility. Immigrants aren’t suffering in the US because the system has to be that way, they’re because people in charge choose to make or keep it that way to benefit themselves. The movie simplifies how these systems work, yes, but that doesn’t change that depicting them as the result of prejudiced, greedy, and corrupt men is not a bad choice.

Like, imagine if someone complained that Hidden Figures uses caricatures that are too simple for the reality of what happened. Yeah, that’s true, and there are definite issues with those depictions, but is it wrong to do that in a movie? I don’t think so.

[And then at least one person in the comments of that post angrily claims this movie constitutes “militant feminism” which makes me see red. Do words even have meaning these days? I feel like every time a film with female leads has a douchey male villain, some whackjob claims that it’s a story asserting that all men are evil.]

If the figures depicted in the movie actually were generally alright people, and the film is villainizing real people unnecessarily, then yes, we have some problems. Otherwise, I’m fine with it.

I am also kind of stunned how much this movie comes out swinging on certain issues. Again, the director’s previous film was a movie that got a lot of attention from right wing media, and this is one that depicts things like racism against immigrants, police brutality, political corruption–things that I don’t think FOX News is as keen on talking about. I think audiences cared enough about it for this movie to be mildly successful, though, which shows that, thankfully, people aren’t on as strictly drawn socio-political lines as the media would have you believe.

 This is a fairly powerful narrative, guys, and it does not hold back. There are wealthy (white) New Yorkers complaining about how “brown children” are running through their streets, people denigrating others for not speaking English, and pointing out that the people oppressing immigrants today are the descendants of immigrants who themselves went through oppression when they arrived.

I like that the movie does not flinch away from that: showing that many of the problems we face today are not new, they’ve been baked into this country for over a century. The problems just wear slightly different hats–who the immigrants being oppressed are, for instance. That doesn’t mean it’s a progressive masterpiece, but I like this direction.

And I really like the title character. She is someone who absolutely does not give up, but is constantly getting frustrated by the people around her underestimating what she’s trying to do and whether she can accomplish it. She knows that she can, the problem is getting other people to see that as well.

Also, the movie’s last line. I’m very fond of it.

But like I said, this movie doesn’t really feel like it’s that interested in the lives of those who served in Mother Cabrini’s religious order, or much of her life and interests. And that’s a definite failing of the movie. Overall, though, I think it’s good, it’s strong, and I think it sticks with you. I lament a bit that it’s not more Catholic, and it could have been. I don’t think it’s necessarily as good a movie about historical figures as something like Hidden Figures, but it is very good, and I encourage people to at least check it out.

[everydaycatholicism]

St Frances Xavier Cabrini

Mother Cabrini was born on July 15, 1850 in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Italy. Being enthralled by missionaries and their work she made up her mind to join a religious order. Because of her frail health Mother Cabrini was not able to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart who had been her teachers and under whom she obtained a teaching certificate. However, in 1880 she along with seven young women founded  the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was resourceful managing to find people to donate their time, labor, and money to cover the needs of her order and its charitable acts. Mother Cabrini and her fellow sisters wanted to go to China as Missionaries but in an audience with Pope Leo XIII she was told "Not to go East but to go West." Mother Cabrini was to go to New York. She and several sisters emigrated to the United States leaving Italy on March 23, 1889 and arriving in New York City on March 31st. Mother Cabrini was to serve the Italian immigrants in New York where she was met with poverty and chaos. Despite tremendous odds Mother Cabrini and her sisters provided for the many needs of the Italian immigrants establishing schools and orphanages. Mother Cabrini arrived in Seattle (my home town) on 1903 exclaiming upon her arrival in the Northwest, "Here we are, not far from the North Pole." While in Seattle she worshipped at St. James Cathedral and she founded Cabrini Medical Tower only but a block away from the cathedral. Mother Cabrini would go on to found hospitals and schools throughout the world. Mother Cabrini died on December 22, 1917, in Chicago. Before her death Mother Cabrini became a United States citizen. In 1946, she became the first American citizen to be canonized. She was elevated to sainthood by Pope Pius XII.

Saint Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants. Her feast day is November 13.