SANT’ANGELO LODIGIANO, Italy (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday exalted the first American saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, as a model for Christians today to care for migrants in need, as he visited her birthplace during a day trip to northern Italy.Leo, who has clashed with the Trump administration over its migrant crackdown, urged young people in particular to learn about Cabrini’s life and service, once again confirming history’s first U.S. pope as the heir to Pope Francis in prioritizing the plight of migrants.Leo prayed before Cabrini’s tomb in a basilica named for her in her birthplace in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, near Milan, and presided over an evening prayer service. The visit to northern Italy is part of Leo’s summertime grand tour of Italy to visit key cities to get to know his flock.
Cabrini, the patron saint of migrants, is well known to many Americans for her work caring for Italian immigrants in the United States at the turn of the last century. Her work went beyond the U.S., however, as she crisscrossed the globe building schools, hospitals and orphanages for those who had nothing.CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONSECRATE US, WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP AND MELANIA ‘JOIN IN PRAYER’ IN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ GESTUREAfter she died in 1917, as a naturalized U.S. citizen in Leo’s native Chicago, Cabrini was beatified and then canonized in 1946 as the first American saint.Leo asks what Francis would do
