Her parents helped to form her spirituality. From the time she was little, she saw her mother pray fervently at the beginning and end of each day. Her father would entertain the family at night by reading them stories of missionary saints. Francesca was so enthralled by the stories of missionaries that she made up her mind to join a missionary order and travel, hopefully, east to China.
Influenced by her older sister Rose, a teacher, she first decided to be a teacher. Because of her frail health, she was not permitted to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart who had been her teachers and under whose guidance she obtained her teaching certificate. Disappointed, she taught for a few years - until she came to the attention of the local Bishop, who asked her to transform the structure of an area orphanage, which was being mismanaged, into a religious institute. She accomplished this with patience, enduring the sharp tongues of the women previously in charge there, and eventually was professed a sister and made Superior - Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. She took the name "Xavier" in honor of one of her heroes, St. Francis Xavier, the famous Jesuit missionary.
Then the Bishop asked her to found a Missionary Institute. In 1880, with seven young women, Frances founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She imbued her sisters with her own dream of becoming a missionary in China. But when she visited Rome and met with Pope Leo XIII, he told Frances to go “not to the East, but to the West,” to New York City.
The Pope wanted Mother Cabrini and her sisters to help the thousands of Italian immigrants already in the United States, who were receiving a chilly welcome from the American Church, whose clergy were Irish or of Irish ancestry. There, amid the poverty and chaos of a strange land, Frances would face the trial of being doubly a minority: an Italian, a despised "guinea pig," and a woman. There she would meet the prejudiced Irish Archbishop who tried to thwart her mission.
In his article, "Mother Cabrini's American Welcome," ("Commonweal," Nov. 2017), Paul Moses tells us that Archbishop Corrigan and the American Bishops had told a Vatican prefect that 'it was impossible to provide at the moment a specific plan for meeting the spiritual needs of the Italian immigrants'; the immigrants were referred to as "the Italian problem."
"When the Pope requested further information, Archbishop Corrigan sent him information gathered from the pastor of Transfiguration Church, which encompassed the lower Manhattan slums where the greatest number of Italians in New York resided. The pastor argued against creating separate parishes for Italians, saying they wouldn’t have the money to support one, and mentioned that the Italian Mass in his parish was held in the church basement.
"Corrigan... sent a cover letter that explained further. It was translated in For the Love of Immigrants: Migration Writings and Letters of Bishop John Baptist Scalabrini, 1839-1905:
'For four years now, they have had free use of the basement of Fr. Lynch’s church. Why only the basement? Forgive me, Excellency, if I tell you frankly that these poor devils are not very clean, so that the others do not want to have them in the upstairs church. Otherwise the others move out, and then good-bye the income. In time we hope to remedy these things. But it is necessary to move slowly.'
"In response, the Vatican issued a sharply critical 1887 report that said Italians were treated in a humiliating way in the U.S. church. It suggested that the religious indifference the immigrants were accused of was their reaction to an indifferent church. For the Love of Immigrants translated: 'It is sufficient to point out that they are so despised for their filth and beggary that in New York the Irish granted them free use of the basement of the Church of the Transfiguration, so that they could gather for their religious practices, since the Irish did not want to have them in the upstairs church.' (Like Corrigan and the pastor of Transfiguration Church, most bishops and priests were Irish or of Irish ancestry.)....
"Upon her arrival, Mother Cabrini learned that there was no house for her to live in; that a school her sisters were to teach in was not ready; and that Archbishop Corrigan was adamantly opposed to the orphanage she planned to start."
The priests who greeted the sisters at the dock told them that their house wasn't ready, and proceeded to take them to a dirty, run-down hotel in the violent Five Points district where they were given two filthy rooms with uncomfortable beds and sheets too filthy to sleep on. The sisters, unable to sleep because of the violent neighborhood and filthy rooms spent the night praying. Paul Moses continues the story:
"The next morning, Mother Cabrini and the sisters met with Archbishop Corrigan at his residence near St. Patrick’s Cathedral. That was when Corrigan said there would be no orphanage...“I see no better solution of this question, Mother, than that you and your sisters return to Italy,” Corrigan announced.
"Mother Cabrini paled, thinking about the storm she had experienced. She informed the archbishop that a higher authority—the Propaganda Fide, overseer of all the churches in America at that time—had sent her to New York. “No, not that, Your Excellency,” she said. “I am here by order of the Holy See, and here I must stay.'
"Corrigan grew red in the face. 'Very well,” he replied, 'stay here, but give up all thought of the orphanage and think only of the schools.'"
The archbishop then introduced Mother Cabrini and her sisters to the Sisters of Charity, who welcomed them in their convent.
Mother Cabrini was both formidable and stubborn. Later, Archbishop Corrigan would change his mind and agree to let Mother Cabrini open the orphanage on East 59th Street. However, even though he knew that the Italian immigrants were extremely poor, and even though his own priests complained that they couldn't raise money from the immigrants, he limited the sisters' fundraising to the Italian community. The sisters went door to door begging and eventually got some financial aid from the American Sisters of Charity.
Mother Cabrini, undaunted by the Irish clergy's lack of support, continued to work. She organized catechism and education classes for the Italian immigrants, and established schools and orphanages despite tremendous odds.
Archbishop Corrigan eventually gave her grudging respect, especially when she financially bailed out a hospital that one of his priests had mismanaged. Her example gave him the courage he needed to found other parishes for Italian immigrants in his Diocese.
"Soon, requests for her to open schools came to Frances Cabrini from all over the world. She traveled to Europe, Central and South America and throughout the United States. She made 23 trans-Atlantic crossings and established 67 institutions: schools, hospitals and orphanages.
"Her activity was relentless until her death. On December 22, 1917, in Chicago, she died. In 1946, she was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XII in recognition of her holiness and service to mankind and was named Patroness of Immigrants in 1950." (from the website of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.)
Today the American Church is in the midst of a great Latino migration. The story of Mother Cabrini's ministry among Italian immigrants should cause American Catholics to reflect on how they view today’s immigrants, and on how the church is responding to them. Is our Church truly pro-immigrant? Yes, the Church here has done much, but how vocal were the American Catholic Church leaders in opposing the anti-immigrant rhetoric heard during the 2016 presidential campaign? How many American Catholics think of Latinos as "filthy, and uncultured" and not worth their time, aid, or friendship?
Mother Cabrini was not afraid to stand up to prejudice in order to help the marginalized. In 1892, she opened a house in New Orleans in the Italian Quarter just one year after a mob had lynched eleven Italians after they had been acquitted in a trial in which they'd been accused of murdering the chief of police - a vigilante lynching that had the support of popular opinion. She and her Missionary sisters fought prejudice through continuous dialogue with the authorities. They helped the immigrants to be fully Italian by strengthening the Christian tradition, including popular prayers and customs, that they'd brought with them from Italy. They also helped the immigrants to become fully American by helping them integrate with the culture of their new country. Today, we need to remember Mother Cabrini's charism for working with immigrants so that the interactions of "old" and "new" Americans are enriching to all and foster acceptance and unity.
2017 marks the centenary of Mother Cabrini's death on Dec. 22, 1917. Mother Cabrini's motto, Pope Francis has said, was from Philippians 4:13—“I can do all things in Him Who strengthens me.” May the unstoppable Mother Cabrini pray for us so that we, too, can welcome the stranger, doing all things in Christ who also strengthens us.