Pope Leo: St Cabrini’s mission to migrants remains urgent today

Vatican News

Returning to the homeland of one of the Church’s most celebrated missionaries, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to St. Frances Xavier Cabrini on Saturday, presenting her life and legacy as a model for addressing one of the defining challenges of the modern world: migration.

The Pope’s visit to Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, a small Lombard town south of Milan, formed part of his pastoral journey to nearby Pavia. The visit carried particular symbolic significance. It was here, in 1850, that Francesca Cabrini was born before embarking on a life of mission that would take her across the Atlantic and eventually to Chicago, where she died in 1917. Canonised in 1946, she became the first saint of the United States and was later named Patroness of Migrants.

Speaking during a moment of Eucharistic Adoration and the veneration of the relic of Cabrini’s heart in the Church of St. Antonio Abate and Santa Francesca Cabrini, Pope Leo reflected on the saint’s enduring relevance for the Church today.

“I am here to pay homage to Mother Cabrini,” the Pope told the faithful gathered in the church, greeting local civic and religious authorities, including Bishop Maurizio Malvestiti of Lodi.

Connection with Chicago

St Cabrini spent the final years of her life in Chicago, the city where Pope Leo XIV was born and raised. Recalling this connection, he thanked the people of Sant’Angelo Lodigiano for their warm welcome and praised the deep affection that the local Church has always shown toward the Successor of Peter—an affection that Cabrini herself embodied through what he described as her singular devotion and obedience to the Pope.

As a young religious sister, Cabrini had dreamed of becoming a missionary in China, inspired by St. Francis Xavier. Yet when she sought guidance from Pope Leo XIII regarding the future direction of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the answer was unexpected. Rather than sending her eastward, the Pope instructed her to go “not to the East, but to the West.”

At the time, millions of Italians were leaving their homeland in search of a better future overseas, particularly in the Americas. Encouraged by Leo XIII and by St. John Baptist Scalabrini, another great apostle of migrants, Cabrini recognised in this movement of peoples one of the great pastoral challenges of her age.

Reading the signs of the times

Pope Leo described this decision as a profound example of reading the “signs of the times.” Cabrini understood that her missionary aspirations were to be fulfilled not where she had originally imagined, but where the need was greatest.

Turning his attention to the present context, the Pope noted that migration remains one of the most pressing realities facing societies and the Church, albeit in a form far more complex than in Cabrini’s era.

“If Mother Frances were living today,” he asked, “what would her missionary soul say? What would the Heart of Christ say to her heart?”

The answer, he continued, lies in the spiritual source that animated every aspect of Cabrini’s life: the love of Christ revealed in His Sacred Heart.

The Pope recalled that Pope Francis dedicated his final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, to the human and divine love manifested in the Heart of Jesus. That same devotion, he said, was the driving force behind Cabrini’s extraordinary missionary activity. Her countless journeys, schools, hospitals, orphanages and charitable institutions were not simply social works but expressions of a profound encounter with Christ’s love.

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The Heart of Jesus

The Pope also referenced his own apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, in which he highlighted Cabrini’s witness alongside that of St. John Baptist Scalabrini. Quoting the saint’s own words, he recalled her conviction that “no work would be too difficult, no land too distant, and no person too wounded” for the love of the Heart of Jesus.

Standing before the relic of Cabrini’s heart, brought from the congregation’s motherhouse in nearby Codogno, the Pope suggested that her charism remains strikingly relevant in an age marked by displacement, social fragmentation and new forms of poverty.

“What could be more timely than a missionary charism dedicated to the service of migrants?” he asked.

Appeal to young people

The Pope also directed a special appeal to young people, encouraging them to discover Cabrini through her writings, letters and travel journals. Those who encounter her story, he said, inevitably find themselves captivated by a woman who united contemplation and action in an extraordinary way.

Deeply rooted in prayer and immersed in the love of Christ, Cabrini developed a remarkable capacity for work and perseverance. Her life, Leo XIV noted, reflected the Pauline motto adopted by her congregation: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”.

Cabrini’s enduring witness

Turning to the local Church of Lodi, the Pope expressed the hope that it would continue to reflect the virtues embodied by its most famous daughter: love for Christ, missionary zeal, generosity toward the poor and fidelity to the Gospel.

He also linked Cabrini’s witness to the Church’s commitment to synodality, encouraging Catholics to walk together in unity while drawing upon the diverse gifts and ministries present within the Christian community.

As he concluded his address, Leo XIV offered a prayer for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the congregation founded by Cabrini in 1880 and now active worldwide. He urged the entire Church to look to the saint as an example of how to serve God’s Kingdom amid history.

More than a century after her death, the Pope suggested, Cabrini’s message remains unchanged. In a world still marked by migration, uncertainty and human suffering, the Church’s response must continue to begin where hers did: in the transforming love of the Heart of Christ.