The Catholic Message Board

I watched this as a movie premiere at a theatre located in lower Manhattan near where Cabrini had arrived to the city’s Five Points area. The tickets were free of charges. After the film they staged a question and answer panel of people involved in the movies production. The in-person panel discussion was an excellent compliment to the movie premiere.

I rate this movie 3.5 stars.

The political vibe at the time of the premier was near the zenith with the migrants that came to NYC. The timing of this movie arrived at a difficult moment when immigration was being touted as the answer to practically everything. The political might of political correctness in NYC seemed unstoppable at the time.

The movie was designed to gaslight the audience about immigration in the USA, and that might never age well for this movie. If they had not portrayed an “immigrant-good and innocent / colonialist-bad and uncaring” theme, I might have rated this film 5 stars.

The film was colorful, easy on the eyes, and the audio was comforting. It had a few actors I liked.

I might have already posted a review I wrote when the movie came out, but I'm too lazy to check. So, here are my thoughts:

“It’s a shame you are a woman, Mother. You would have made an excellent man.”

“No, men could never do what we do.”

Cabrini arrived on March 8 which fell on International Women’s Day. Ironic, because I doubt Mother Frances Cabrini is on any feminist calendar in any hemisphere, north, south, east, or west. Too bad, because she promoted the plight of all people, particularly orphans, regardless of religion.

There was a time parents could take the kids to the movies for wholesome entertainment, including epics like The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Story Ever Told, even if they were cynical exploitations of religious sentiment. Other than watching that scene when the Red Sea parts, does anyone care to watch Charlton Heston in a robe and patrician beard? In between now and those snore-fests, there was also The Song of Bernadette, but precious little in between.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to claim we are living in the Age of Faith in Media. Recently, theaters ran The Sound of Freedom and His Only Son, unapologetically Christian-oriented films. In case you overlooked the connection, there’s a collection basket in the form of a QR scanner on the big screen.

The movie captured the squalor of the environment in a way Jacob Riis did a century ago in How the Other Half Lives. It also depicts the grit of this selfless, sickly consecrated woman dedicated to helping others. She is obedient to her clerical superiors, but she also has a knack for exploiting loopholes like a defense lawyer. Mother Cabrini enlists the help of a reporter who exposes the sordid underground life of people who survive in sewers and pick food out of trash. Think of hundreds of homeless people, but out of sight.

My only complaint is that little is shown of a prayer life. In one scene, she appears in a church, but this sets up a confrontation between her and the bishop of the diocese where she was never welcome to begin with.

She soldiered on, and her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus went on to establish hospitals and institutions on every habitable continent. – March 25, 2024