My head was crowded while walking out of the cinema after watching Cabrini.  While viewing it, I had so many thoughts as to what I wanted to write about it.  You probably would not be surprised by the number of notes I took.  It is the latest from Angel Studios, famous for their Faith-based productions, though this does not tell the whole story.  God is bigger, and St. Francis Xavier Cabrini (Cristiana Dell’Anna), known more familiarly as Mother Cabrini, thought along those lines.  As I drove away, my mind settled.  For months, years really, I have been wrestling with my vocation.  Do I stick to what I always dreamed I would be, a husband, or do I follow where God might be calling me to at this stage in my life?  Whatever the case, Mother Cabrini has what is no doubt a Divinely inspired answer, and one that perhaps you, dear reader, needs to read: it takes courage to become who we’re meant to be.  I repeat those words to myself as much as to you because God knows I have fears about whatever I decide.  I hope (and “hope” was a powerful word for her) that by the end of this review, we may be that much more emboldened to take that proverbial next step.

In the monastery of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an order founded by Mother Cabrini, she dreams of carrying her work beyond their Lombardy, Italy, base and over to China.  One day, she receives a summons to the Vatican in Rome.  She is brought there so that she can be told in person that her request to travel to Asia is denied, hoping that will stifle her barrage of letters with the same request.  Not one to take refusal for what she feels is her calling, she is able to get in to see Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini).  While she remains steadfast in her desire to go East, he encourages her to go West.  This is in response to the opening scene where we see Paolo (Federico Ielapi) pushing his dead immigrant mother through the streets of New York City trying to get her help, and being ignored.  Pope Leo XIII tells Mother Cabrini that she can begin her conquest of hope from what was then the destination of millions of Italian immigrants.  Because she is eager to do this work, she accepts, becoming the first woman in Church history to be sent on a mission.  To give more context to this last fact, this is set in the late nineteenth century.  This was not a good time to be from another country in New York City, or the United States in general, especially for people from Italy.  Even though she is a nun, her arrival is met with the same contempt as any other person of her ethnicity.  This includes Father Morelli (Giampiero Judica), the priest from the working class Five Points neighborhood in which Mother Cabrini and her sister are meant to minister.  Walking through the streets late at night, they encounter Vittoria (Romana Maggiora Vergano), a prostitute who gives them her room for the night.  She does this over the objections of her pimp, who is the first of many hurdles in this new country.  Another is the Archbishop of New York, Archbishop Corrigan (David Morse), who did not support her being there in the first place, seeing Italian immigrants in general as a problem.  Nonetheless, Mother Cabrini is able to quell his objections by producing a letter from Pope Leo XIII.  Soon, she is setting to opening a rough orphanage in the Five Points for parentless children like Paolo.  Such is the instant success she enjoyed that she quickly needs a new building.  This requires money, and the Archbishop refuses her request for funds, or to be allowed to raise them from Americans.  Her solution is to turn to the press, giving reporter Calloway (Jeremy Bobb) a tour of her neighborhood where the rats live better than immigrant children.  The coverage brings in enough cash to move to a nice building in a more respectable area.  It also brings the attention of Mayor Gould (John Lithgow), who is as racist as anyone else of the day.  In turn, he puts pressure on the Archbishop to do something about Mother Cabrini.  Though she had slightly won over the Archbishop, his solution still involves giving her a massive, but problematic plot of land just outside the city.  She gladly accepts, and once more begins to thrive.  Yet, she is called to further action when Dr. Murphy (Patch Darragh) ask that her order take over a hospital for the needy vacated by Father Morelli.  Once again, Mother Cabrini is called upon to provide assistance, particularly after one of the children from her orphanage dies in a pump station explosion and the previous facility proves inadequate.  This also means the need for more capital, and this time she turns to people who are well-off and with immigrant backgrounds.  Additionally, she holds an Italian American festival as a fundraiser, but she is arrested for citing civil unrest.  Because of this, the Archbishop sends her back to Rome.  Pope Leo XII wants to see her return to New York, but needs to see that her plans are financially feasible.  For this, she turns to the Italian Senate, appealing to their compassion for their fellow Italians in poverty in the United States.  This proves to be persuasive, and soon she is once more landing in New York, this time with the Archbishop waiting to greet her.  Still, while construction begins on a new hospital, arsonists set fire to the building.  Mother Cabrini immediately suspects people working for Mayor Gould.  With this in her mind, and Calloway in tow, Mother Cabrini reminds the top politician in the city of an upcoming election.  She gets the necessary support, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Speaking of history, Cabrini does a solid job of handling the past.  Because of this, it gives me the opportunity to flex my Catholic and historical muscles at the same time.  Watching this movie was something like seeing much of the first chapter of my dissertation, “The Costumed Catholic: Catholics, Whiteness, and the Movies, 1928-1973,” on the big screen.  Everything you see as to the treatment of Italian immigrants in the late nineteenth century at the height of immigration happened in some form.  The derogatory term “dago,” as well as viewing them as inhuman, were all utilized by whites at this time.  What is missing, though, is how this was connected to their Faith.  More than once throughout American History, and intensified during peak immigration between 1880 and 1920, Italians were seen as part of an invading popish horde sent by the Roman prelate to take over the United States.  Though being a nun, it is hard to see Mother Cabrini as anything other than a representative of that supposedly dangerous religion, but this aspect of her character is muted.  Oddly enough, though, I am okay with how it works.  Granted, I would have liked to have seen her in Mass more, or encouraging the children at the orphanage attend, for starters.  Instead, she is a more accessible Catholic, and there is something to be said about this approach.  Mother Cabrini lived her Faith with her habit, the clothing of a nun which is referred to at one point as her armor, and her work.  Though she is given a short life span, she nonetheless carries on living out the vocation God gave her.  She relies on God, giving herself totally over to His providence in everything. We may not witness what we expect of a nun, and I still think more could have been done with this, but she is no less His servant.

Mother Cabrini and her sisters served God by serving the poor.  When she encounters roadblocks to her mission, be it from the Church or American society, she reminds them that this is who she has comes to serve.  This is mainly what inspired me as I alluded to in the introduction.  Upon returning to Rome following the trouble she stirred in New York, Pope Leo XIII observes that he has trouble seeing where her faith ends and her ambition begins.  This is because she sees it as her mission to establish what she calls an “Empire of Hope.”  In the postscript, the movie tells us about the success her and her sisters enjoyed not just in the United States, but the entire world.  In the eyes of the producers, this puts this Catholic saint in the same light as other American entrepreneurs from the same period in American History.  That is, arguably, a bold claim, but it can be looked at in the same vein as what Jesus came into the world to do.  She is spreading the same message, and doing so at a time of meteoric success in the United States.  With that success came a great deal of poverty in this country.  This is another aspect of the film that it nails, historically speaking.  If you were to look up the work of Jacob Riis from the same time frame, you would see images that back up what you witness in this film.  When you have such abject poverty, it takes a great deal of courage to make an impact.  Indeed, Mother Cabrini credits her adopted country as giving her the necessary boldness to continue pressing to for change.  It takes a boldness born of God to do what she did, and the Bible has examples to support such a claim.  1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “. . . God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong.”  With Mother Cabrini, you have a woman suffering from tuberculosis in a decidedly male world bringing to the attention of the mighty the existence of people without means.  I can say the same thing about myself.  Who am I to take on American Culture and thinking that I can have any influence?  Hollywood thinks it can get away with damaging our souls, but I am here to show you all a different way.  May St. Francis Xavier Cabrini pray for me in this endeavor.

There was only one thing that bugged me about Cabrini.  Throughout the movie you often see men indoors wearing hats.  The first time I saw it with one person, I thought they just missed this social faux pas.  But it became a pattern throughout to where it seems like they were telling people on the set to keep them on their heads.  This is not a reason to avoid the movie.  You should watch it because it is remarkable, as was Mother Cabrini.