It is quite rare for a reactionary figure such as a Catholic saint to receive favorable biographical treatment from the film industry as Angel Studios recently afforded St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, a 19th century Italian nun who immigrated to the United States, in its new film Cabrini.
With an obvious nod to the feminist movement, Cabrini was released on International Women’s Day and tells the story of this missionary nun from Italy who built orphanages, hospitals, and churches in New York City and all over the world, eventually becoming the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church after her death.
The film is beautifully shot, and features impressive sets recreating the Vatican, the Italian Senate, and, most strikingly, the Five Points slum in New York City that was filled with Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. The acting by Cristiana Dell’Anna as Cabrini, David Morse as Archbishop Michael Corrigan, and John Lithgow as the fictional Mayor Gould is flawless and a welcome departure from the campy and forced acting that is so often a feature of movies with a religious subject matter.
Before watching the film, I was aware of a growing discontent among Catholic and conservative commentators regarding Cabrini’s treatment in the film and the perception that it downplayed or eliminated references to faith while turning this small Italian nun into a feminist girlboss.
“Though not entirely diluted, the film’s treatment of Cabrini’s Catholicism may be too subtle,” wrote National Review’s Giancarlo Sopo. “Director [Alejandro] Monteverde’s aversion to being pigeonholed as a ‘faith-based’ storyteller is understandable (a two-and-a-half-hour Christian infomercial is a tough sell). However, the light-handed approach inadvertently mutes Cabrini’s fervent spirituality, which defined her life and mission.”
Paul Kengor, the editor of the American Spectator, said the film delivers a “a secularized Cabrini” and is a “shocking portrayal of a sainted nun who doesn’t go to God. This saint goes to herself, to her femaleness. I dare say that if we exhumed Mother Cabrini’s body in her tomb on the Hudson, we might find it flipped over.”
While there is no question that the filmmakers deliberately downplayed the role of Catholicism and faith in Cabrini’s life and mission, the conservative critiques of the film miss why Cabrini succeeds in its goal of telling the inspiring story of this sickly Italian nun who overcame incredible odds to build an “empire of hope.”
Cabrini is not a perfect movie by any stretch. A couple of lines that are clearly meant to play up the film’s feminist credentials feel a bit forced and I found myself rolling my eyes at them. The film’s breathless pace is also a bit daunting and left me feeling as though there were a few glaring loose ends that could have been better explained, especially a sequence involving police disrupting an Italian cultural festival fundraiser where Cabrini is supposedly arrested.
Nevertheless, the embittered critiques that the film wokefied a deeply holy woman and turned her into a hero of secular feminism missed the subtle and brilliantly effective ways that the film used Cabrini’s faith and the Catholic religion to advance the story while simultaneously shedding the “faith-based” label.
To begin with, it is quite difficult for a storyteller in the 21st century to tell the story of a Catholic missionary nun from Italy in the late 1800s without coming across as at least a little bit feminist. To this day, religious sisters minister to people of all walks of life by staffing hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and homeless shelters. The very nature of their work requires them to put the desire for family life aside so as to fully enter into the mission they have chosen. And in 1880s New York City, it would not be unexpected to see a nun summarily dismissed from the arena she has entered on account of her sex. Women at the time rarely took on any job that did not involve a large amount of domestic work. Even the orphanage that Cabrini and her fellow sisters took over had previously been run by an ineffectual parish priest.
Cabrini’s dedication to the service of others is the central message of the movie, a dedication so fierce that she is willing to move mountains to convince stubborn men to assist (or at least not hinder) her missionary cause. And despite the film toning down her Catholic faith, there is no divorcing Cabrini’s service from her vocation as a woman who consecrated her life to God and the church. Her mission is done on behalf of the pope and the sacred heart of Jesus, whose icon strategically appears behind Cabrini at various points of the film, sending a clear visual message that it was Jesus who oversaw and guided her work.
Rather than let the perfect be the enemy of the good, Catholic and Christian audiences should embrace Cabrini for what it is: a microcosm of the inspiring and awesome story of a nun who dedicated her life to the service of the poor and needy Italian immigrants of New York City.
It’s a message that is more than capable of instilling curiosity in a secular audience that will then seek to learn more about this remarkable woman and the beacon of faith and holiness that she was. And that is something that Julia Attaway, the executive director of the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in New York City, recognized in a recent interview with the National Catholic Register.
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“A movie doesn’t have to cause instant conversions,” she said. “When you put things out there that are good and true, God will work with them in the hearts of people. I think that what the movie puts out there can plant many seeds.”
Just as Cabrini built an “empire of hope” from nothing, may those seeds grow and bear much fruit.