SOURCE: Burnham, Philip. “American Saint.” Commonweal 73 (10 February 1961): 512-14.

In the following review, Burnham sketches the character of Mother Cabrini presented in Immigrant Saint, concluding that “the book is bravely done.”

Saint Francesca Xavier Cabrini is the saint most immediate to contemporary Americans. She died in Chicago only in 1917, was beatified in 1938, and canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946. In [Immigrant Saint,] a fairly brief and rather strained chronicle, Pietro DiDonato gives the rush of day-to-day movement and interest and accomplishment which Mother Cabrini so recently created here in our own headlong society.

This society at the turn of the century was notably looser, less integrated and less rationalized than now. There was more leeway. Cost accounting, taxes, and rules and regulations were still restricted enough to encourage more surprising initiatives from the smallest beginnings, more flagrant failures, and more dramatic successes. Conductors could give free trolley rides to...