Cabrini students react with pride to new movie about their school's patron saint

Students from Allen Park school — first in the U.S. named for St. Frances Cabrini — attend screening of new cinematic release

SOUTHGATE — When your school's namesake is the subject of a new hit movie, it's worth a morning off school to grab some popcorn and check it out.

Hundreds of middle school and high school students from St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Schools in Allen Park began their school day March 13 with a screening at a local theater of Angel Studios’ new cinematic release "Cabrini."

Students packed the MJR Southgate Cinema to learn more about their school’s patron saint.

The new film, which has garnered critical acclaim from both Catholic and secular media and currently has a 90% critic score and 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, tells the story of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first United States citizen to be canonized a saint.

The movie follows Mother Cabrini’s life and challenges as she journeys to the United States from Italy and ultimately founds an order of missionary sisters, 67 hospitals, orphanages, schools and other charitable institutions up until her passing in 1917.

Founded just months after Mother Cabrini's canonization in 1946, St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Allen Park was the first Catholic parish in the United States to adopt her as its patroness. The parish grade school opened in 1949, and the high school opened in 1960.

While the showing was optional for students, the majority chose to attend, Fr. Timothy Birney, who serves at St. Frances Cabrini, told Detroit Catholic. Additionally, nearly 350 Cabrini parishioners attended screenings on Friday, March 8, and the afternoon of Wednesday, March 13, in theaters rented by the parish.

“It was incredibly exciting and moving to see Mother Cabrini’s story on the big screen,” Fr. Birney wrote in a press release. “Our students are well-informed of our patron saint’s life and accomplishments, and I’m confident they were inspired and proud today to see the difference she made to many and continues to make to people just getting to know her.”

While Fr. Birney shared the criticism most common among Catholic reviewers — that the film showed very little of Mother Cabrini’s spiritual life and instead opted to focus on her work — he believes it was a valuable experience for students to see their patron on the big screen, and they agreed.

"I found it very inspiring how persistent she was with everything that was going on and with how horrible everyone was to her,” Cabrini senior Kaitlin Bone told Detroit Catholic. “She didn’t give up, and she didn’t let her illness hold her back.”

Bone, who has been a Cabrini student since kindergarten, said while she knew bits and pieces of the saint's life, the film opened her eyes to the extent of Mother Cabrini’s impact.

“(Mother Cabrini) was trying to reach out to everyone, and she wanted to help children from all different races,” Bone said. “She wanted to help people, and she didn’t judge them. (In the movie) there was a friend of hers who says, ‘I’ve done terrible things; how could you forgive me?’ and Cabrini said, ‘I look at you, and all I see is a strong woman.’ She was really trying to be there for everyone, and that’s why everyone should see it.”

Watching the movie made sophomore Colin Maffesoli proud to call himself a Cabrini Monarch.

“(The movie) just shows how much she actually did for everyone in the country, and it shows she is a great person. I am more proud to go to Cabrini school now,” Maffesoli said.

For junior Maeve O’Connell, who has attended Cabrini since pre-kindergarten, the movie not only inspired her to feel greater pride in her school and her Catholic faith, but also an icon of female resilience and strength.

“I came in thinking, ‘Oh, it is a school field trip. It’s probably educational, just a bunch of history stuff,’ but it was a lot more than that, and I was really pleasantly surprised,” O’Connell said. “This movie is going to help show our school pride in how wonderful a woman she was, not just as a Catholic movie, but seeing a female leadership movement and showing what one woman can do for the entire world.”