Many names might come to mind when thinking of the first saint from the United States. But only one earns the title: Mother Frances Cabrini. And a new film tells the story of this Italian-American saint.
LEO SEVERINO
Producer, Cabrini film
She built a charitable empire that was larger than anything the Vanderbilts or the Rockefellers had built combined. So, yes, just on her accomplishments alone, being this great American saint, just on that alone, it's worth telling the story. But even further, it's this fact that she's so inspiring to each individual. We want people to come across more than anything on this film is a determination that if you're serving something good, there's no obstacle too big.
Mother Cabrini originally planned to be a missionary in China. But an audience with Pope Leo XIII changed her life as he told her to go west. She traveled to New York and worked with thousands of Italian immigrants and orphans. And her legacy can still be seen today in orphanages, schools and hospitals.
LEO SEVERINO
Producer, Cabrini film
I think it's an important film only because this is an important life. She literally changed the world. Literally changed the world. I'll give one example. She was canonized in 1946. There was a young nun who was inspired by that canonization and a couple months later, she was in a Loreto order of nuns—which was a teaching order of nuns. She left her order to start an order of missionaries in the vein of Mother Cabrini. That woman is Mother Teresa. Mother Cabrini was the inspiration for Mother Teresa.
Producer Leo Severino says this new film will help people get to know the first American citizen to be canonized.
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