A Review of Cabrini by Nick Olszyk
Distribution Service: Theatrical
Year: 2021
MPAA Rating, PG-13
USCCB Rating, Not rated at the time of this review
Reel Rating, Three Reels
Every
grade school-aged Catholic knows that Mother Cabrini was the first US citizen
to be canonized a saint, but few can explain the significant impact she made on
countless generations. At the time she operated in the late 19th
century, the United States was still considered mission territory, and
Catholics were viewed with disdain as unwanted vestiges of the old world.
Combine this with significant anti-Italian racism, even by some fellow
Catholics, and she had her worked cut out for her. Cabrini, a new film
by Angel Studios, wonderfully highlights these challenges with a stellar cast.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, or in this case, a short Italian woman.
A
young child, Francesca Cabrini (Cristiana Dell'Anna) nearly drowned and
not expected to survive. Through
prayer and willpower, she lived, though was sickly through her whole life. By
her early thirties, she had already founded a religious order in Italy that
ministered to the poor and had her sights set on expanding to China, then the
whole world. This would make Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart the only
international mission headed by a woman. Despite some skepticism in the
Vatican, she wins over Pope Leo XIII, who grants her request – provided she
starts her mission in the United States rather than China.
She
begins her ministry in Five Points, an Italian ghetto of New York City that
functions almost like a separate nation. Neglected by the police and any social
services, the streets are filled with destitute Italians governed largely by
criminal enterprises. Prostitution, malnourishment, illiteracy, and spiritual
ignorance are everywhere. Like Mother Teresa a century later, she is undaunted
and simply ministers to the first person she sees, then the next, then the
next. Her operation begins in a small orphanage abandoned by the local parish
but slowly grows into a city-wide operation. She embodies Jesus’ adage to be
“wise as serpents but gentle as doves” in her process, alternating between
playing with children and using journalistic pressure to force corrupt city
officials to do her bidding – and all this despite being given only a few years
to live.
The film makes an enormous point of Cabrini’s
gender, much more so than she herself would have cared. The camera often looms
from above as she is berated by men, whether pimps from Five Points, the mayor
of the city, or even the Archbishop. Her appeal is never to her “own rights as
a woman” but to the gospel. She reminds these men of their duty to care for the
poor and the sick. There is also her own conviction that this is God’s will,
and they should not interfere. She never deliberately disobeys anyone but finds
clever loopholes to get what she needs. When the Archbishop forbids her from
asking native Catholics for money, she goes to recent Italian immigrants. Only
once does she ever acknowledge her sex, and it’s an important line. Towards the
end of her life, one of her friends looks back on all she has accomplished.
“And to think,” he smiles. “You did all this as a woman.” She smiles politely
back. “A man could never do what we can.” Women literally sacrifice their
bodies and give of their own cellular structure to bring life into the world.
That is why God chose to come into the world through a woman, and why a child
searches for his mother for comfort. Men can do many things, but they can never
be mothers.
When
this nation started, less than 1% of Americans were Catholic, but by the 19th
century large populations of non-Protestant immigrants had settled throughout
the nation. Yet these ethnicities, though united by faith, carried their old
prejudices with them. When Cabrini settled in the Big Apple, the clergy was largely
dominated by the Irish who viewed the Italians as dirty and uneducated. While
these ethnic lines have largely dissipated, the American Church has created new divisions. While the audience may not recognize the
inter-Catholic racism of Cabrini, the factionalism, estrangement, and
the bureaucratic frustrations of the hierarchy are all too familiar. Mother handles all these challenges with
dignity, patience, and deference, never disobedient but always relentless. I
was reminded of the parable of Persistent Widow, which doesn’t say much for our
shepherds both then and now.
Cabrini
is one of a half dozen productions by Angel Studios in less than two years
including the mega hits The
Sound of Freedom and The Chosen. Few remember the origins of
this company which started as VidAngel, a Mormon enterprise that edited
mainstream films for family audiences. In a classic David and Goliath
narrative, the tiny mom and pop operation was targeted by several
major studios in a lawsuit that bankrupted the company overnight. Yet out
of the ashes, the company’s founders pivoted to streaming and original content,
and the Provo team got their revenge when Freedom outperformed every
movie from the House of Mouse last year. It is now the main competitor to
PureFlix, which marketed to evangelicals while Angel Studios is taking a
broader approach.
While
Cabrini does a fine job of portraying its subject, it lacks the
sophistication of Sound of Freedom or raw charism of The Chosen. Without
the budget of big period sets, it relies heavily on CGI for wide vistas and
small, minimalist interiors, giving the film a claustrophobic feel. While Dell'Anna’s
performance was compelling, it also lacked any sort of spiritual development. Cabrini
would have significantly benefited from examining the interior life. In a film
about a famous nun, she is never shown at Mass and almost never praying. This
is where she drew her unending strength. In a Church that is again fraught with
divisions, we need her intercession more than ever.
Mother
Cabrini, pray for us, children of your labors in this great land, and pray for
the American Church that – united under the cross – it may bring the gospel
again and again to this great land.+
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