Frances Xavier Cabrini (Italian: Francesca Saverio [or Saveria] Cabrini; born Maria Francesca Cabrini; 15 July 1850 – 22 December 1917), also known as Mother Cabrini, was a prominent Italian-American religious sister in the Catholic Church. She was the first American to be recognized by the Catholic Church as a Saint.
Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC), a religious institute that today provides education, health care, and other services to the poor in 15 nations. During her lifetime, Cabrini established 67 schools, orphanages and other social service institutions in Italy, the United States and other nations. She became a revered and influential figure in the Catholic hierarchy in the United States and Rome.
Born in Italy, Cabrini migrated to the United States in 1887. Despite anti-Italian prejudice and opposition within the Catholic Church in America, she successfully established charitable institutions in New York City for poor Italian immigrants. She later extended these efforts to Italian immigrant populations across the United States. Catholic leaders were soon calling on her to create missions in Latin America and Europe.
Cabrini became a naturalized American citizen in 1909. After her death in 1917, her order started a campaign for her sainthood. The Vatican beatified Cabrini in 1938 and canonized her a saint in 1946. The Vatican named her as the patron saint of immigrants in 1950.
Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on 15 July 1850, in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, then part of the Austrian Empire. She was the youngest of the 13 children of farmer Agostino Cabrini and his wife Stella Oldini. Only four of her siblings survived beyond adolescence.
Born two months prematurely, Frances Cabrini was small and weak as a child and remained in delicate health throughout her life. During her childhood, she visited an uncle, Don Luigi Oldini of Livraga, a priest who lived beside a canal. While in Livraga, she made little paper boats, dropped violets she called "missionaries" in the boats, and launched them in the stream to sail to India and China. Cabrini made her first holy communion at age nine. On one occasion, she fell into the river and was swept downstream. Her rescuers found her on a riverbank. Cabrini attributed her rescue to divine intervention.
Cabrini's older sister Rosa was a teacher, which influenced her to follow the same career path. At age 13, Cabrini attended a school in Arluno, Lombardy, that was run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1868, she graduated cum laude from the school with a teaching certificate and returned to Sant'Angelo Lodigiano to teach at the parish school. She later worked for three more years as a substitute teacher at a school in Castiraga Vidardo in Lombardy.
After Cabrini's parents died in 1870, she applied for admission to the Daughters of the Sacred Heart at Arluno. However, the sisters rejected Cabrini because they believed her health wasn't strong enough. In 1872, while working with the sick during a smallpox outbreak, she contracted the disease and was rejected by the Canossian Sisters of Crema, again for health reasons. It was reported, however, that the priest in Cabrini's parish asked the two orders to deny her application because he did not want to lose her as a teacher.
In 1874, a priest in Codogno, Lombardy, invited Cabrini to take over a poorly-run orphanage operated by the Sisters of Providence in that town. After arriving in Codogno, Cabrini took religious vows into Sisters of Providence, finally achieving her goal of becoming a religious sister. She added Xavier (Saverio in Italian) to her name to honor Francis Xavier, the patron saint of missionary service. Like Xavier, her ultimate ambition was to become a missionary in East Asia. However, the two Providence sisters in charge of the orphanage finances were jealous of Cabrini and worked to thwart her actions.
In 1880, due to their turmoil, the Providence Sisters in Codogno dissolved and the orphanage closed. Cabrini then spoke with the bishop of the Diocese of Lodi, Domenico Gelmini, about her future. He told Cabrini that she should pursue her dream of becoming a missionary, but that he did not know of any religious orders that would train her. Cabrini responded by saying that she would start her own missionary order.
Cabrini bought a former Franciscan convent in Codogno. With several of the former Providence sisters, Cabrini in November 1880 founded the Institute of the Salesian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC). At the Codogno convent, the MSC sisters took in orphans and foundlings, opened a day school, started classes in needlework, and sold their fine embroidery. Over the next five years, the MSC sisters established seven homes, a free school and a nursery in Lombardy.
In early 1887, with the blessing of Bishop Giovanni Scalabrini of Piacenza, Cabrini opened a convent in Castel San Giovanni in the Emilia-Romagna region. Scalabrini had recently founded the Scalabrinian Missionaries, an order of priests to perform missionary work with Italian immigrants in New York City. He believed that the MSC sisters would be of tremendous assistance to the priests in their work. He asked Cabrini to consider opening an orphanage in New York. Countess Mary Reid DiCesnola, a wealthy Catholic socialite in Manhattan, had been relentlessly petitioning both the pope and Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York to open an orphanage there for Italian girls, which she would fund. Cabrini still wanted to go to Asia, but also wanted to open a religious home in Rome and gain papal approval for MSC. She allowed Scalabrini set up a meeting with Pope Leo XIII.
In September 1887, Cabrini went to Rome to meet Leo XIII. She asked him for permission to set up a convent in Rome, which he readily gave. She also asked for permission to send missions to Asia. However, Leo XIII was thinking of a different destination.
During the 1880s, the pope and the rest of the Roman Curia were worried about the large numbers of impoverished Italian immigrants emigrating to New York. Leo was concerned that these Catholics would leave the Church unless they received material assistance and spiritual guidance. Instead of allowing Cabrini to go to China, Leo XIII told her, go "...not to the East, but to the West..." to New York City.
In December 1888, Cabrini committed to going to New York City. The pope also recognized the MSC as a missionary institute, the first group of Italian religious sisters to receive that approval. Scalabrini promised Cabrini that his religious order, Scalabrinians would greet the MSC sisters in New York City, take care of their needs, and work closely with them.
Corrigan wrote to Cabrini in February 1889, welcoming her to New York City, but advising her to delay her departure to allow more time for preparation. However, when the letter reached Italy, Cabrini was already gone. At age 38, Cabrini sailed for the United States, arriving in New York City on March 31, 1889, with six other MSC sisters. When they disembarked from the ship, the Scalabrinians were not there. Furthermore, they had failed to set up accommodations for them. The sisters spent their first night in the United States in a decrepit rooming house with bed bugs in the mattresses, forcing them to sleep on chairs.
During this period, the Catholic hierarchy and clergy in New York City were dominated by Irish immigrants who shared a common prejudice against Italians. Many of the Irish Catholics considered the Italians to be dirty, superstitious and almost pagan. Many of the Irish-run parishes segregated Italian worshippers in church basements. The archdiocese had very few Italian priests, hindering communication with the Italians. Corrigan, also Irish, believed that only men were suitable for missionary work with immigrants. He had wanted the Vatican to just send him Italian priests, not religious sisters.
The day after arriving in New York, Cabrini and the other sisters walked into Corrigan's office. Totally surprised that they were in New York, Corrigan told Cabrini that the archdiocese was unready for them and that they should immediately return to Italy. Cabrini refused to go back, simply saying, “I have letters from the pope”, and gave her letters of introduction to Corrigan. Unwilling to defy a papal mandate, Corrigan could not force the MSC sisters to leave.