In a Barbie World, It’s Cabrini We Need
Cristiana Dell’Anna as Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. Photo courtesy of Angel Studios.
With divine support, women have the power to achieve anything they set their minds to. This is the main message of “Cabrini,” the newest film from Angel Studios, which chronicles the life of the first American saint, Frances Xavier Cabrini.
Directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde and backed by the expertise of Oscar award-winning producer Jonathan Sanger, Mother Cabrini’s story unfolds as a true cinematic masterpiece that far surpasses the superficiality of other films with similar messages of female empowerment. While movies like “Barbie” captivate certain audiences with their artificial charm, Cabrini’s narrative offers depth and substance, enriched by its profound Catholic perspective.
Born the youngest of thirteen children to Italian farmers in 1850, Mother Cabrini was a fragile woman with a strong will and a powerful mind. After nearly drowning in a canal while playing with paper boats when she was little, Cabrini was left with lifelong health complications. Despite facing challenges due to her condition, she remained resolute in her determination to alter the norms of nineteenth-century society, which were often dominated by patriarchal attitudes, by ceaselessly advocating for larger roles for women in society.
In her late twenties, Cabrini took religious vows and, with seven other women, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a religious institute that housed and educated orphans. Years later, Cabrini met with Pope Leo XIII to ask for his permission to establish missions in China. After she was famously urged to go “not to the East, but to the West” to assist the impoverished Italian immigrants who were pouring into the United States, Cabrini and six other sisters embarked on a journey to New York City. They arrived in 1889 with hearts full of love and a desire to help society’s most vulnerable.
Their efforts, however, were nearly thwarted by the perverse sexism and discrimination they experienced – not only as females, but as Italian immigrants – at the hands of New York’s ruling class, which was composed entirely of men at the time. Regardless, the sisters persevered. As described by an 1889 New York Sun interview with Mother Cabrini three months after she arrived in New York, the sisters, dressed in full garb, traversed the city’s Italian quarters, “climbing up dark, steep, and narrow stairways, diving down into foul basements, and into dens which even a New York policeman does not care to enter without assistance.”
Cristiana Dell’Anna, who stars as Mother Cabrini in the film, tells me that viewers would be surprised at the amount of mud that she had to walk through every day while filming. “There was a load of mud throughout the entire set, all the way on the main alley, and I had to walk on it every single day. It really felt so real,” she says, laughing. “My boots and skirt always sat in mud.”
Dell’Anna, like Mother Cabrini, was born and raised in Italy. When she learned that she would be portraying the woman who some claim to be the female equivalent of John D. Rockefeller, she was elated. “Getting the role was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because it’s very rare for an actress to get a leading role in a movie driven entirely by women. And because the character is way too interesting,” Dell’Anna shares with an audible smile. “You always think that nuns are not very active, but Cabrini was. She urged her sisters to put the word of the Bible into action, and I was just very impressed by her doings.”
Dell’Anna’s expert portrayal of the zeal and grit with which Mother Cabrini lived and worked leads viewers to believe that they’re observing the real Mother Cabrini on screen, trudging through the late-nineteenth century slums of New York, rightfully challenging both church and state authorities and befriending prostitutes and abandoned children alike.
Cristiana Dell’Anna comforts an orphan in “Cabrini.” Photo courtesy of Angel Studios.
This expert portrayal, however, did not come easy to Dell’Anna, who shares that she left her family for an extended period of time in an effort to truly step into the role of America’s first saint.
“I felt I needed some space and time on my own to just see what it feels like to be in a contemplative state so that I could just focus on the one thing I was doing, which was meditation and prayer,” Dell’Anna says. “Because Cabrini was ill, I also wanted to look a bit like her, which meant that I had to really watch what I was eating – not because I needed to be on a diet, but because I wanted to look fragile,” she confesses. “I love food, but I wanted to deprive myself of it a little bit because I wanted to feel what it felt like to be completed devoted to one thing only and to make a vow and to stick to it.”
Throughout this period of introspection, Dell’Anna took long walks in nature and minimized her communications to discussions with Monteverde about her role. Her efforts, she says, helped to strengthen her connection to God. “Trust me,” Dell’Anna says, laughing, “when you really want that piece of cake, and you’re telling yourself you can’t have it, it’s a good way to remind yourself that there’s a higher good that you should pursue.”
Since playing Mother Cabrini, Dell’Anna’s spirituality has become stronger than ever. She’s even found that Cabrini acts as a constant conscience within her, guiding her thoughts, words, and actions, while she does press for the film.
“Mother Cabrini has informed my life in ways that I didn’t know before,” Dell’Anna says. “Sometimes she’s still with me in the sense that now that we’re promoting the movie, I just wonder what if she was sitting on the couch with me right now as I’m having this conversation with you? What would she say to me? What would she want her image to be like – not out of vanity or anything, but for truthfulness?” Dell’Anna reflects. “That’s what’s really affected me after having shot the movie rather than anything else. It’s just being truthful to her life and taking the responsibility to make sure that her story is properly told,” she says.
Reflecting on the film as a whole, Dell’Anna says that one thing she hopes female viewers take away is the importance of perseverance. “As long as you don’t give up and you don’t give in, you can still achieve anything you want. It’s so easy to just give up because it’s too difficult, but, with equality, there is a very strong sense of responsibility. If we don’t understand that, and we’re not ready to take that responsibility, we will never really make change, and Cabrini knew that – she knew she had that responsibility, and she very gladly took it on her shoulders. As women, we should all do that, to fight for each other.”
When asked about her hopes for the male population, Dell’Anna laughs and says, “I just hope they’ll see that even a nun can do anything. Regardless of the habits or outfits that women wear, they are so much more than what men see – they’re not just objects or flesh and blood. It’s that plus the soul and mind that are the makers of the vessel of that body.”
In our imperfect world, Cabrini is the ideal heroine. Her story is not merely one of personal triumph, but is also a narrative of profound societal change. Through her tireless efforts, she challenged the status quo and paved the way for women to have larger roles in society than they had prior to Cabrini’s time. Along the way, she helped to construct and operate numerous hospitals and orphanages throughout the world, bettering the lives of those most in need. Her legacy serves as a reminder that greatness can be achieved by having an unwavering reliance on God and a work ethic grounded in perseverance, humility, and compassion.
