Frances Cabrini, American Exceptionalism, and Returning to Rome Kathleen Sprows Cummings
Frances Cabrini, American Exceptionalism, and Returning to Rome Kathleen Sprows Cummings The Catholic Historical Review, Volume 104, Number 1, Winter 2018, pp. 1-22 (Article) Published by The Catholic University of America Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cat.2018.0000 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/691023 Access provided by American Catholic Historical Association (23 Apr 2018 18:16 GMT) Kathleen Sprows Cummings President The American Catholic Historical Association 2017 (Photo credit: Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame) THE CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW VOL. 104 WINTER 2018 NO. 1 Frances Cabrini, American Exceptionalism, and Returning to Rome KATHLEEN SPROWS CUMMINGS* By analyzing Frances Cabrini as a canonized saint, a U.S. citizen, and an immigrant, this essay shows that American exceptionalism has shaped U.S. Catholic historiography as well as hagiography, and sug- gests that emphasizing the centrality of the Holy See to the American Catholic story can help historians consider U.S. Catholicism in local, national, and transnational registers. This essay also suggests that Cabrini’s story can inspire a new generation of historians to integrate the approaches of several previous generations, by adopting a more expansive vision of the institutional Church that also includes the ordi- nary people who had little or no direct engagement with its structures. Keywords: Frances Cabrini, saints, American Catholicism, canon- ization, women, missionary, Holy See ecember 22, 2017, marked the centenary of the death of Frances DCabrini, a native of northern Italy, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (M.S.C.), and the first U.S.
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