St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (born July 15, 1850, Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy [Italy]—died December 22, 1917, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.; canonized July 7, 1946; feast day November 13) was an Italian-born Roman Catholic nun and founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. She was the first United States citizen to be canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She is venerated as the patron saint of immigrants, hospital administrators, missionaries, and impossible causes.

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Maria Cabrini was the youngest of 13 children, only 4 of whom survived to adulthood. She was determined from her childhood to make religious work her life’s vocation. After teaching in Italy, in Vidardo (1872–74), she was appointed supervisor of an orphanage in Codogno (1874). In 1877 she took her vows and changed her name in honor of St. Francis Xavier, a patron saint of missionaries, and soon afterward she became known as Mother Cabrini.

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She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1880, which served orphans and offered a day school. She planned to found a convent in China, but Pope Leo XIII directed her to “go west, not east,” and she sailed with a small group of sisters for the United States in 1889. Their work in the United States was to be concentrated among Italian immigrants, whose communities were discriminated against and neglected—including by American Catholic clergy—because of anti-Italian and anti-immigrant attitudes that prevailed at the time. This journey was the first in a series that took her through the Americas and into Europe. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1909. Although plagued by ill health most of the time, Mother Cabrini established 67 houses—one for each year of her life—in such cities as Buenos Aires, Paris, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro. She also founded several schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

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The canonization process to make Mother Cabrini a saint was expedited, beginning only 11 years after her death, when two miracles were attributed to her. She was beatified—the second stage in the canonization process—in 1938 by Pope Pius XI and was declared a saint in 1946 by Pius XII. In 1950 she was named the universal patroness of immigrants. A national shrine devoted to Mother Cabrini is located in Chicago, the city where she died.