A Review of Cabrini -- A saintly biopic marred by boring Hollywood tropes

Gloria Romanorum ^ | March 14, 2024 | Florentius

[Antoninus]

In sum, Cabrini is a film about a Catholic saint made by non-Catholics who are good at making movies, but who lack much understanding about what drives ordinary women to become saints.

[escapefromboston]

I was going to watch it but I see it’s going over 2 hours which just seems self indulgent. Very few movies can justify going over 90 minutes and this film doesn’t seem like it’s one of them.

[jagusafr]

While it wasn’t long before Italians were accepted as Americans, devout Catholics have never really been. If you need evidence of that, consider the overtly anti-Catholic emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chair, John Podesta in 2016, or how our current “Catholic” president’s Department of Justice classifies traditional Catholics among potential terrorist groups.

A bridge too far. Catholics (and Mormons) are routinely portrayed as being morally upright, and not generally in a bad way. Look at “Blue Bloods”- honors a Catholic family’s Catholic traditions. Look at “The Mission” or any number of other films over the last 40 years. On the other hand, Protestant Christians are routinely portrayed as overbearing, judgmental racists longing for “the good old days”.

[jagusafr]

BTW, The Colonel’s Wife and I saw it last weekend. I had never heard of Mother Cabrini before and was awed by the breadth of the ministries she founded worldwide.

[scouter]

Excellent review. I agree with every word except that I would have given it three stars despite its flaws.

[x]

We streamed “Nefarious” and were surprised when Glenn Beck popped up at the end of the picture.

He’s been promoting “Cabrini.” I hope he doesn’t have a cameo in it as the pope or something.

[Antoninus]

Look at “The Mission”

Recall that "The Mission" was made in the 1980s at the height of the Contra/Sandinista war. It was a political film which showed the institutional Church--the anti-communist Church of Pope St. John Paul II--as in cahoots with the evil colonial oppressors. Meanwhile, the Jesuits--who at the time were touting the Marxist-Catholic amalgam known as liberation theology--were the good guys.

Interestingly, the political overtones of The Mission have fallen away over the intervening 40 years since its release, and what we're left with is a beautiful film about redemption and a reflection on whether it is ever good or right to use force to defend the Faith.

I haven't watched enough Blue Bloods to form any judgements on that particular show. I'm guessing that the characters are NOT traditional Catholics. They are most likely what we call "cultural Catholics" who don't actually believe what the Church has traditionally taught. The ruling elite have ALWAYS been ok with that sort, particularly when they become bishops.

[Antoninus]

He’s been promoting “Cabrini.” I hope he doesn’t have a cameo in it as the pope or something.

Glenn Beck is a fallen-away Catholic and current Mormon. That should tell you a lot about why Cabrini portrays a Catholic saint as it does.

[Antoninus]

I had never heard of Mother Cabrini before and was awed by the breadth of the ministries she founded worldwide.

That is the best part about the film. If more people are spurred to read further about the life and works of Mother Cabrini, then the film may be counted a success.

[jagusafr]

Give Blue Bloods a try. In virtually every episode, the entire family sits down to dinner, prays over the meal and discusses matters of substance.

[milagro]

I just saw “Cabrini”, and though it was a well-done movie, it edited out one character central to the nun’s story:
God!

[Antoninus]

I just saw “Cabrini”, and though it was a well-done movie, it edited out one character central to the nun’s story: God!

Exactly. It was kind of like the Jefferson Bible in that regard.

[Hattie]

Daughter and I saw it a few days ago. We are not Catholics and had never heard of Cabrini. Awed by the amount of good she did while ill much of the time. Good for Italians and all immigrants. I have to wonder if anyone else would have wanted to start a Charity Hospital in the 1800’s or even now.

At any rate we learned a great deal of NYC and early American history. And we both have great respect for America’s first Nun proclaimed “Saint Cabrini”.

[Antoninus]

We are not Catholics and had never heard of Cabrini. Awed by the amount of good she did while ill much of the time.

That's very encouraging to hear. Mother Cabrini truly was an outstanding woman. If this film convinces folks to find out more about her, then it will have been a success.

[Campion]

No, the scenes with Sister Cabrini and the Pope are done in Italian. The Pope is Leo XIII and the actor looks nothing like him. Leo XIII was small, wizened, with white hair (think a Papal version of Yoda). The Italian actor who plays him looks like a retired pro football player with salt-and-pepper hair.

[xkaydet65]

It took quite a while before Italians were fully accepted, even by the Church in America. I an 50 50 Italian Irish. When my parents celebrated their marriage at the Hotel Shelton in Manhattan they were the only 2 people to cross the dance floor. My mom went to Epiphany Church and school in Gramercy Park. She was treated wonderfully as she was Gramercy Park Tammany aristocracy. Italians in the parish were not permitted in the main church for Mass but had to go to the basement Church. They reacted by literally building their own Church, St Sebastian, and calling to the old country for priests. So in a very real sense Mother Cabrini was the NGO Italians needed in America to guide them past the bigoty of the Church in America.

[Antoninus]

They reacted by literally building their own Church, St Sebastian, and calling to the old country for priests. So in a very real sense Mother Cabrini was the NGO Italians needed in America to guide them past the bigoty of the Church in America.

This was not merely an Italian vs. Irish thing. Every ethnic group (Polish, Czech, German, etc.) had its own parish churches because there was real antipathy among all groups. Navigating that was a tricky prospect for any bishop. To a certain extent, it wasn't the native-born Americans who caused those problems, but the immigrant groups themselves. The native born Protestants tended to shun and dislike the Papists as a whole.

As a 100% Italian myself, I grew up long past the time when ethnic parishes were the norm. But even to this day, you will find echoes of that tendency. There are still "Italian" parishes in Philadelphia, though nobody speaks Italian anymore and few people in those parishes are anything but Americans. Most of those neighborhoods are now black, or hispanic, or yuppified.

[libsdelendaest]

I really don’t want to be obnoxious or put anybody down, but I have to say it is so very upsetting when I read a suggestion that only an immigrant (”good for all immigrants....I wonder if anyone else..”) would have started a charity hospital. Woeful ignorance which is excusable but not the thought pattern behind it.

The second oldest charity hospital in the US was founded in New Orleans May 10, 1736. The oldest dates from a few months earlier in NYC. Bellevue traces its origins to the city’s first permanent almshouse, a two-story brick building completed in March 1736. Side note, almshouses date from the 10th c in Britain.

I am begging you not to make knee jerk poisoned assumptions about US history. The liberal propaganda runs deep. Please, please attempt to extirpate it from your and your daughter’s minds.

[xkaydet65]

I taught for ten years in the 70s in northern Bushwick in Brooklyn. It was the home to the last wave of Italian immigration, the postwarera. I keep in touch with a lot of the kids I taught. One funny thing. They mostly stayed bilingual but many on visiting Italy, to their parents towns, whether in Sicily or Calabria or the Alto Adige, the locals had trouble understanding them since starting with Musolinni and continuing post war local dialects were suppressed and replaced with Roman Italian.

[Fledermaus]

Lithgow is a super far left jerk