CHICAGO (OSV News) — When Pope Leo XIV goes to Pavia, Italy, on June 20 to venerate St. Augustine’s remains, he’s scheduled to take a half-hour detour to also venerate another saint.
Pavia is near Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, the birthplace of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and also where a piece of her heart will be temporarily housed specifically for the pope’s visit.
Those closest to the pope have said they do not know of a religious devotion Pope Leo, the first American pope, has for the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. But they also said that although 105 years separate their birth, the two have a common “compassion” for the poor and marginalized, particularly migrants and refugees. And, knowing their friend and fellow Augustinian, they equated this with a form of devotion to Mother Cabrini.
Augustinian Father John Lydon noted Mother Cabrini is the patroness of immigrants.
‘The church’s embrace of immigrants’
“And so there’s a devotion to the cause of Mother Cabrini … the cause of migrants. She’s the representative of that cause,” said Father Lydon. “I don’t know if it’s a particular devotion to her as a saint, but she represents, for the church, the church’s embrace of immigrants. And that’s the holy cause. That’s what Mother Cabrini inspires in us. And I think that’s why (Pope Leo) wants to go and to acknowledge that.”
Father Lydon has been a long-time friend of the 70-year-old Pope Leo since their college days and they lived together for 10 years in the 1990s in Peru. They served and taught there at an Augustinian seminary founded by American Augustinians in the impoverished northwest.
Father Lydon is also the inaugural director of the Augustinian-run Villanova University’s recently opened Mother Cabrini Institute on Immigration. He admitted he “didn’t know a lot about her life” but that the 2024 movie “‘Cabrini‘ illuminated me to the greatness of her and her devotion to immigrants.”
“That, I always felt. And he always felt that,” Father Lydon said of Pope Leo.
‘Cabrini’ film depicting the saint’s missionary work
The pope’s brother, John Prevost, told OSV News in an email, he didn’t know of any personal devotion the pope had to Mother Cabrini, but that he also did “enjoy the movie ‘Cabrini,’” which depicts the saint’s missionary work and advocacy for immigrants in the U.S. in the late 1800s to early 1900s.
Apart from ministerial ties, the pope and the saint also have geography in common.
Pope Leo, a native of Chicago, grew up in its south suburbs until he left at age 13 for the Augustinians’ minor seminary in Holland, Michigan.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini had strong ties to Chicago, arriving from New York in 1899, nearly 90 years before then-Father Prevost carried out his ministry at the seminary in Peru. In Chicago, she founded a hospital and a Catholic school, ministering to the poor, mostly immigrant population.
Mother Cabrini died in Chicago in 1917 and was canonized in 1946, becoming known as the patron saint of migrants. She came to the U.S. under the direction of the current pope’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who told her to go not east, but “to the West” from Italy, and first started ministering to the poorest of the Italian immigrants in New York. The pope’s grandfather’s roots can be traced back to Italy.
Augustinian ministry to immigrants
The Augustinian missionaries in Peru ministered to the influx of Venezuelan immigrants that flooded neighboring and nearby South American countries as well as Mexico and the U.S.
The Venezuelans’ mass migration starting in 2014 — with at least 8.5 million having fled their country — was driven by the country’s economic collapse that brought political instability and violence.
At the height of the Venezuelan exodus, Father Lydon had become president of the Catholic University of Trujillo and Pope Leo, then-Bishop Robert F. Prevost, was shepherd of the Diocese of Chiclayo nearby.
“It was a lot, and Peru, at that time, was going through a lot of difficulties. … For the majority of the people, to open their homes or their hearts to the migrants was not easy,” said retired Bishop Daniel Turley, who led the Diocese of Chulacanas, Peru.
He was also national president of the Peru bishops’ commission on migrants for about 20 years until he retired in 2021 and returned home to the Augustinians’ Midwest province in Chicago. He said in his work with the immigrants in Peru, his department adhered to the late Pope Francis’ directive on migrants and refugees: “to welcome, protect, promote and integrate them.”
Impoverished northwest mountain region in Peru
Bishop Turley, 83, was a missionary in the impoverished northwest mountains of Peru for 53 years. He also was then-Father Prevost’s superior during his time in the bishop’s vicariate.
He said then-Bishop Prevost’s Chiclayo Diocese was one of the “very best” equipped dioceses in the country “for service, for administering, to the migrants.” Bishop Turley said today, as pope, he has continued Pope Francis’ vision for ministry to migrants and refugees worldwide.
The retired bishop is the recently appointed rector at the National Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in Chicago, having accepted the position, he explained, because of his own strong affinity to migrants and the needy.
The common heart for migrants shared by Pope Leo and Mother Cabrini is also highlighted by the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage route this year marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S.
The Eucharistic procession dubbed the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Route started in St. Augustine, Florida, on May 24. It’s scheduled to hit most of the original 13 U.S. colonies and other historically significant stops along the eastern seaboard, and it will be in Philadelphia for July 4.
Retreat for NEP pilgrims at NY Cabrini shrine
A mid-point retreat for the perpetual pilgrims is scheduled at the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in New York. The June 16-17 retreat is within days of the pope’s visit to venerate Mother Cabrini’s heart.
On the Fourth of July, Pope Leo will go to Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island known for being a gateway into Europe for migrants from Africa.
NEP President Jason Shanks called the coinciding of the dates of the pope’s Lampedusa visit and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. “profoundly meaningful” in a statement sent to OSV News.
“Cabrini’s life bridges so many of the themes shaping this moment in the Church: mission, migration, sacrifice, and a Eucharistic love poured out for the forgotten,” he said.
And this, Bishop Turley said, is what Pope Leo’s affinity to Mother Cabrini is founded on.
“Is he on his knees everyday before a statue of Mother Cabrini? I don’t think so,” Bishop Turley. “But devotion is much more than that.”
Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.
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