Frances Xavier Cabrini
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is the patroness of immigrants because she spent her life serving them: an Italian sister sent by Pope Leo XIII not to the missions of the East she longed for but “to the West,” to the masses of poor Italian immigrants crowded into the cities of the Americas, she crossed the ocean some thirty times and founded sixty-seven institutions — orphanages, schools, and hospitals — to shelter the uprooted. The first naturalized United States citizen to be canonized, she knew the immigrant’s life from within. Her great work of building and running hospitals makes her also the patroness of hospital administrators, and her tireless care of parentless children the patroness of orphans.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first naturalized American citizen to be canonized. Born in Italy in 1850, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and was sent by Pope Leo XIII to the United States to minister to Italian immigrants. She established sixty-seven institutions — orphanages, schools, and hospitals — across the Americas and Europe.
