She was an Italian nun who talked back to the pope, cardinals, archbishops and a New York mayor, an activist who faced racism and sexism, and an entrepreneur who launched a global network of orphanages and hospitals — all with just six other women.
And the tiny dynamo was canonized as the first U.S. saint.
A newly released movie about this remarkable woman, Francesca Xavier Cabrini, is more feminist than faith-promoting.
“Move over, ‘Barbie,’” exulted a “Catholic Mom” podcast. “We need ‘Cabrini.’”
This is hardly your typical religion-drenched film, though the saint’s faith is a quiet presence throughout the 142-minute film. It is, instead, a movie about a woman “who changed the world,” executive producer J. Eustace Wolfington says in an interview, “who just happened to be a nun.”
Her life, Wolfington says, “was her sermon.”
‘Charismatic presence with a hard head for business’
(Angel Studios) Cristiana Dell'Anna as Francesca Cabrini in the film "Cabrini."
Cabrini was born in 1850 in a small town in northern Italy. She wanted to join a missionary order and travel the world, but a chronic heart condition kept her from it. So she founded her own order, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
She repeatedly pushed Vatican officials, including Pope Leo XIII, to send her to China. Instead, Leo (who later championed her efforts) directed the nun to New York City, a metropolis teeming with poverty, chaos, disease and hostility to Italian immigrants.
Despite opposition from politicians and the city’s Catholic hierarchy (mostly Irish), she established schools, hospitals and orphanages, especially for immigrants, who regularly endured slurs, discrimination and exclusion.
(Frank Franklin II | The Associated Press) This statue, shown in 2020 in New York’s Battery Park, honors Francesca Xavier Cabrini, seen as the patron saint of immigrants.
Cabrini soon got requests from across the world for her order to open schools. She traveled to Europe, Central and South America, and throughout the United States. Eventually, she made 24 trans-Atlantic crossings and built an empire that included 67 institutions.
She mixed “a saintly, charismatic presence with a hard head for business,” according to an online history. “When necessary, she could be a tough negotiator and drive a hard bargain, enabling her order to grow by leaps and bounds and to run on solid business principles. The original group of seven Missionary Sisters had grown to over a thousand by the time of her death.”
The sickly but indomitable woman died Dec. 22, 1917, in Chicago, and 29 years later was canonized by Pope Pius XII in “recognition of her holiness and service to mankind.”
‘A movie for our time’
(Bob Edme | AP) A pilgrim prays in front of the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes, France, in 2020.
Unsurprisingly, Catholic viewers have been moved and energized by Cabrini’s life and work, Wolfington says, but so are many others.
They come to the theater, anxious about the brokenness of the world, fearful of the future, and feeling powerless, the producer says. They walk out “excited about life again… inspired and motivated to go forward.”
Latter-day Saint writer and filmmaker Margaret Blair Young described the effect a movie about another Catholic nun had on her father, Robert Blair.
“He saw ‘The Song of Bernadette’ in 1943 at age 13,” Young says. “The film [about reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in France] moved him so deeply that he knelt on the ground before entering his home. There, he dedicated his life to God. He would later be a Mormon missionary and a mission president, but that particular film was as holy to him as any LDS book or movie.”
Margaret Blair Young, a retired Brigham Young University English professor who, with her husband, Bruce, helped sculpt the first Latter-day Saint film produced in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Congolese members, says “Cabrini” could have the same impact on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other believers.
It “will inspire them, just as the 1943 film inspired my father,” Young says. “It is a beautiful film.”
The nun “stood up to government officials and even church officials in order to further her mission of ministering to the poor,” the writer says. “She was able to find goodness in the midst of filth and degradation, and beauty in brothels. She saw Christ in every face.”
Indeed, Wolfington says, his movie, with its universal themes, should appeal to modern audiences. Though set in the late 19th century, its look at the problems of immigrants, women, the homeless and destitute, he explains, makes it “a movie for our time.”
Utah-based Angel Studios
(Angel Studios) Cristiana Dell'Anna as Francesca Cabrini in the film "Cabrini."
Hitting thousands of big screens on March 8, “Cabrini” earned more than $7.6 million during its theatrical opening.
It is the polar opposite of a previous work, “Sound of Freedom,” by its Provo-based distributor, Angel Studios.
That controversial film, inspired by the exploits of embattled Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard, depicts the work of a macho male who rescues sex-trafficked girls. It was hugely popular, raking in nearly $20 million its first weekend in summer 2023 and ultimately grossing more than $240 million worldwide.
(Angel Studios) Lucás Ávila and Jim Caviezel in “Sound of Freedom.”
But this nun’s narrative reflects Angel Studios’ commitment to faith-based storytelling, similar to the popular TV show “The Chosen,” about the life of the biblical Jesus (though the Provo studio is no longer distributing that series, according to creator Dallas Jenkins).
And the two movies had the same Mexican director, Alejandro Monteverde, with the same, rich textured cinematography and music — including a final evocative piece by world famous tenor Andrea Bocelli and his daughter, Virginia.
“This effort will likely prove far less divisive [than ‘Sound of Freedom’] if also less commercial,” writes The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck. “An old-fashioned, classically styled biopic, it could well have been produced by Warner Bros. in the 1930s, with Bette Davis in the title role and Paul Muni as the pope.”
The story behind the movie
(Angel Studios) A frame from the film "Cabrini."
More than 60 years before embarking on this film project, Wolfington encountered Francesca Cabrini’s statue in a church he visited.
“I learned about her life,” the executive producer says, “and I made her my patron saint because she made things happen, and I wanted to make things happen.”
The producer talked about the saint every chance he got, but it wasn’t until 2015 that he considered making a movie about her.
That’s when Sister Mary Louise Sullivan of the Missionary Sisters of Cabrini University in New York began pushing Wolfington.
In the 1950s, Italian actor Sophia Loren wanted to play Cabrini, he says. In the 1970s, Martin Scorsese planned a movie about the saint.
Neither effort came to fruition so Wolfington, the eager devotee, jumped in. He read dozens of books on the saint, worked with the screenwriter, scouted locations in Buffalo, N.Y., and Rome, and hired Italian star Cristiana Dell’Anna as the lead.
“It’s a $50 million production,” he says, with the best cinematography, acting, music and dialogue the team could assemble. “We wanted to do a movie on par with any major Hollywood studio.”
Wolfington also insisted that it be made as 501(c)(3), or nonprofit organization, with all the net revenues earned from the film going to charity.
This is “our movie,” Wolfington declares, “but we made her ‘executive director’ [from heaven].”
She has, he says, “guided us all the way.”
Correction • March 17, 5:45 p.m.: This story has been updated to correct the mention about the first Latter-day Saint film produced in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Congolese members.
