19461776 Club
Pope Pius XII canonizes Frances Cabrini; the naturalized American is now the first U.S. saint
She died in 1917 wrapping gifts for children, leaving behind 67 institutions across four continents built for the immigrants no parish would seat at the front pew.
By 1946, the Italian immigrants Frances Xavier Cabrini had spent her life serving had built parishes, schools, and hospitals across American cities that once shut them out of the front pews. On July 7, 1946, Pope Pius XII canonized her in Rome, making the naturalized American citizen the first American ever recognized as a Catholic saint. She had died nearly thirty years earlier, in 1917, days before Christmas, wrapping gifts for children in one of the 67 institutions she founded across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe…
