Gutting Jesus: Feminist Cabrini, Secular Saint

This is not a religious movie.

If you’d like to see a movie about a saint utterly gutted of religious meaning this Lenten season, piqued by a perverse curiosity of what such a spectacle might look like, then go see Cabrini. It’s quite the marvel: a film about the first American citizen to become a saint, a woman who did everything for her dear Jesus, that somehow completely ignores the very Jesus Christ who inspired her.

I didn’t hear a single mention of Jesus in Cabrini. If there was, I could be easily forgiven for missing it. After all, this is not a religious movie.

Then what is Cabrini? Its message is thoroughly modernized, a 21st-century American tale. It’s a feminist movie, pure and simple, about a woman who — always — looks exclusively to herself rather than to God for her inspiration and ability to overcome every obstacle. These are obstacles placed by men who don’t like her and sometimes hold her in outright contempt because she is a woman. And there’s a second obstacle: Frances Xavier Cabrini, born in July 1850 in the town of Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Italy’s Lombardy region, was Italian.

Thus, Cabrini is based on three overriding themes: discrimination, discrimination, discrimination. That is, discrimination against women and against Italians in the era when Mother Cabrini came to New York.

To be sure, women and Italians faced much discrimination in that era. I say this as an Italian American. My last name is Polish, but my mother is 100 percent Italian (according to my DNA test, I’m 55–65 percent Calabrian). My family came to America at precisely the timeline identified at the opening of Cabrini. In fact, indulge me, if you will, as I relate a few items from what my family experienced so that readers will understand that I’m not coldly shrugging off this film’s hyperventilating focus on bigotry toward Italians.

My great-grandfather, Pietro Giovinazzo, set sail to America from Reggio Calabria in October 1906 — as a stowaway. As the ship approached Ellis Island, he dove into the Hudson River and swam ashore. He probably ventured to an area similar to the one fascinatingly recreated by the Cabrini film. Ultimately, he managed to make his way to the hills of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and then Emporium, Pennsylvania. 

One day at the family farm, surrounded by his wife, Rose Maria, and many little children, he got a visit from the KKK. A local Protestant pastor spoke for the angry group. “We’re going to burn you out,” he informed Pete. Pete, a tough man who had fought in the Italy–Ethiopia war and carried a loaded .44 (and was wanted by police back in Italy), snapped at the Klansmen: “No touch! No touch! I shoot! I shoot!”

All of which is to say that I’m not unsympathetic to Cabrini’s focus on discrimination. Though I shudder to think what these filmmakers would do if they had to make a movie about my great-grandfather. His entire life would be distilled into a two-hour cinematic litany about bigotry. I actually never once heard my grandfather (Pete’s son) talk about discrimination. I guess my grandfather wasn’t woke.

Mercifully, my Italian ancestors didn’t obsessively bellyache about bigotry the way this film does. Pietro would have never jumped off that boat. He would have sat in the hull moaning and whining and barking, “Racists!” at the crew, demanding the assistance of a DEI officer.

That said, to its credit, the best thing about Cabrini is its wider capture of Italian culture during that period. The film delivers beautiful imagery of the old country, Rome, and the Vatican. The cinematography, scenery, the language (39 percent of the dialogue is in Italian) are all terrifically done. The re-creation of 19th-century Italy and early Italian New York evokes The Godfather Part II, with the young Vito Corleone. It’s mesmerizing. I found myself repeatedly whispering to my wife, “I love this. The kids need to see this movie.” 

But once Mother Cabrini (played by Cristiana Dell’Anna) settles in New York, the film slides downhill, aiming to please less the Christian faithful than the woke. The moments of divine inspiration that everyone is expecting in a steady buildup never, ever come.

To that end, the film could have been easily salvaged at multiple junctures if, just once, in one of her many “dark night of the soul” moments, this Mother Cabrini could have turned to a crucifix, pleaded to Jesus, and prayed. Alas, she doesn’t. She relies on her own will, perseverance, inner strength, determination, resolve, and refusal to accept no for an answer. She puts her faith only in herself, as a woman. The film is so filled with hackneyed feminist claptrap that it’s an insult to our intelligence, and certainly an insult to Mother Cabrini’s memory. I would hope that even progressives watching all the politically correct poppycock would have had enough at some point. To not even show a literal saint invoking Jesus is appalling, a gross injustice, downright unbelievable, and obviously inaccurate. It’s a sin of omission.

Julia Attaway, the executive director of the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in New York City, says this of the real Mother Cabrini: “All of her charitable works, all of her perseverance, everything that she ever did was driven by the desire to draw people to the heart of Jesus. That was her sole reason for doing anything.” Attaway told the National Catholic Register, “[H]er trust in Jesus became absolute.”

That’s indeed the real Cabrini, but you will not see her in Cabrini. This film’s “Cabrini” trusts absolutely and solely in herself. She doesn’t need Jesus, even as she carries her cross. Said Attaway: “To her, every cross was an opportunity to become more like Christ.”

As for those dark night of the soul moments, Attaway (who is very charitable in her assessment of the film) adds:

You see those scenes in the movie … and wonder, “How is it that she didn’t wear out?” The answer is that her heart was so much like Jesus’ that it was his compassion flowing through her…. The answer is, the boldness and compassion we see in her is Christ.

Again, you don’t see that in the movie. You don’t see Christ.

Worse, the movie goes out of its way to excise Christ. A striking example is a rare “prayer” moment in the film, when Cabrini and her sisters say grace. The traditional table blessing (spoken in Latin) was reduced to only: “Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona … Amen.” This translates to: “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts … Amen.” But as every Catholic knows, the full version of this standard prayer is: “Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi, per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.” The full prayer ends with: “through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.” Quite egregiously, the filmmakers yanked Christ out of the prayer, which I’ve never heard done by anyone, ever. Imagine nuns doing so!

Sadly, this secularization of Mother Cabrini, including the lack of showing her in prayer, was “deliberate,” as those who made the film candidly concede (watch this very revealing interview with the executive producer, particularly at the 17:00 mark). 

This is a secularized Cabrini. It’s 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.

Much was made of the filmmakers’ decision to release Cabrini on International Women’s Day, which, of course, is a secular socialist holiday. I was hoping that the filmmakers were turning the tables on the IWD folks, redeeming this secular day by offering an example of a saintly woman inspired by faith, akin to how Pope Pius XII turned May Day into the day of St. Joseph the Worker, splendidly infuriating socialists and communists. Quite the contrary — this “Cabrini” is the worst of what IWD is. She’s an IWD poster girl.

This film of a saint honored not the Lenten season in which it was released but, rather, the secular International Women’s Day. That’s very sad. 

Fittingly, Mother Cabrini’s final words in the film are a nauseating gut-punch, driveling some pabulum about women being better than men, or some such childish silliness that I didn’t even bother jotting down on my notepad. At that point, I was in too much agony to lift my pencil.

If I may, I’ll finish with an inspiring quote from the real Mother Cabrini: “Jesus, I intend to offer each suffering as if it could remove a thorn from your heart and gain one more soul to give you glory.”

That was truly Mother Cabrini. Too bad you won’t find a line like that from Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini anywhere in this film.