Today, when the faults of the Catholic Church are given enormous coverage, it is gratifying that a film in current release actually shows the Church in a positive light.
While many people, including Catholics, are perhaps unfamiliar with the story of Mother Cabrini, the first American saint, the movie Cabrini will come as an informative account of her life and a pointedly relevant social statement.
As a biopic, the film, carefully researched by writer-director Alejandro Monteverde, while allowing for some dramatic compressions, traces the story of the nun who, while working in an orphanage in Italy, is determined to follow what she perceives as her vocation.
It is a mark of the woman that her ambition is to establish a chain of orphanages around the world, and she asks Pope Leo XIII for permission to start in Asia. Instead, the Pope instructs her to begin her work in the Five Points area of Lower Manhattan,
It is a place of appalling squalor, filth, and degradation, with a large Italian immigrant population that is largely despised and dismissed with abhorrence even by other immigrant populations such as the Irish.
Accepting the challenge, Mother Cabrini (who has taken the religious name of Francis Xavier), travels to New York with a small group of her fellow sisters. There they set about establishing an orphanage to assist the many abandoned children barely surviving there.
What follows is a truly miraculous advance in Mother Cabrini’s work – a tribute to her determination, courage, and sense of vocation.
The film is well-directed, often visually arresting, and superbly acted. If it has any weakness, it is the narrative omissions that raise questions about how certain things came about, for example how Cabrini and her sisters are able to turn an abandoned basement into a fully furnished house, albeit one that is still inadequate for an orphanage.
The film also broadly indicates a multitude of amazing achievements by the fiercely brave saint that the audience must simply accept because of the constraints of time. One can, instead, take satisfaction from the 140-minute running time of the movie and be both entertained and impressed by all that one woman can achieve.
Anyone who wants more can follow the advice of the director and read Maynard’s biography of the saint.
As viewers follow her astonishing journey, some may be skeptical of the veracity of what is shown, but the facts support the dramatic curve of the film’s narrative. As a result, Mother Cabrini’s story will impress, and perhaps even inspire a wide range of viewers. For Cabrini is not only an intriguing example of hagiography, but also a clearly politically relevant statement
In these days when feminists are engaged in promoting women’s causes – their worthiness, their courage, and their ability to achieve – Mother Cabrini serves as an example of a pioneer in the movement. This, the film makes abundantly clear. More than that, it squarely addresses the anti-immigrant sentiments which are too often voiced by many.
Mother Cabrini has to deal with New Yorkers who dismiss the Italian immigrants with pejorative insults such as “brown-skinned animals.” It’s a phrase which, sadly, could be a quotation from today by people who, from a position of comfort and security, are willing to voice anti-immigrant comments, overlooking the fact that North America is to an overwhelming extent populated by immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. The movie Cabrini clearly intends to make such anti-immigrant individuals feel uncomfortable.
The film is also a call to action for all of us to follow the saint’s example and do what we can to aid the less fortunate, the dismissed, and the rejected. It should be essential viewing for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
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