Mother Cabrini and Deaconesses

I could not help thinking about the current state of the Church in America while watching the emotionally powerful movie Cabrini, just released by Angel Studios. The archbishop she dealt with in New York seemed to me to be a caricature of the prelates who are lions within the flock and lambs outside of it. I am sure the lions appreciate the variation of style. You can browbeat the more conservative sections of the Church ad intra but can be meek and mild ad extra to the powers that be.

It is a consolation to me to think that while Catholics in America at least recognize the name of Mother Cabrini, not very many would be able to come up with the name of the bishop with whom she dueled. While I presume that there was some artistic license in the presentation of the drama of the first part of St. Francesca Cabrini’s ministry in America, an elision of dates and figures, I would like to see the reaction of many of our prelates as they saw the film. Balance Exercises for ... Smith, Michael Check Amazon for Pricing.

The screenplay has a symbolic gesture that reveals many layers of meaning. The corrupt mayor of New York berates a timid archbishop and then offers him a drink. His Grace is slow to drink it, and His Honor doubles down the insult and says, “You’re an Irishman, bottoms up,” or something to that effect. At that point another man might have been tempted to throw the drink at the mayor or just walk out; but the cowed archbishop meekly drinks up and then, with a frustrated, weak-man’s bravado, slams the glass down on the mayor’s desk.

When Mother Cabrini goes to the mayor after some ruffians attempt to burn down her hospital in the midst of its remodeling, His Honor is unable to make her afraid. He then offers her a drink, which she accepts and takes up without need of bullying. She had won the mayor’s respect, and the audience’s, of course, by the confrontation. Her lack of reluctance quaffing the whiskey was a symbolic difference between how she operated and how her ordinary did.

Undeniably, Mother Cabrini was a forceful personality and was not inclined to docile acceptance of the course of least resistance. There is a clerical legend around Cleveland that our Archbishop Hoban (honorary archbishop), who knew the great woman from Chicago, had said that saints are supposed to be in Heaven because they are hell to live with on earth, or something to that effect. The lady had a way with clerics.

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