By Tablet Staff
CARROLL GARDENS — After Mass on the Feast of the Sacred Heart on June 11, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will officially unveil and bless the Diocese of Brooklyn’s own statue of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini.
The statue of the woman known as the patron saint of immigrants will be permanently displayed in a shrine outside Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen Church.
Donations totaling $40,000 poured into the diocese to pay for the statue and shrine. The design of the statue includes a variety of historical references, including on the brick base on which the statue will stand. The base will also contain the cornerstone of the original church.
A plaque that will be part of the shrine will read, in part, “A Woman Who Helped Build New York City.”
Members of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, founded by the Italian saint, will also be in attendance at the evening event.
Mother Cabrini worked in Brooklyn after she arrived in the U.S. from her native Italy in 1889 and tended to immigrants in the original church, which is now the site of Mother Cabrini Park in Carroll Gardens.
Bishop DiMarzio called Mother Cabrini a “woman of vision, a woman of courage” during a 2020 interview with The Tablet.
The bishop served as a co-chairman of the Mother Cabrini Commission, a panel put together by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, that oversaw the placement of the saint’s statue in Lower Manhattan last year.
Editor’s Note: The June 11 Mass celebrating the Feast of the Sacred Heart begins at 7 p.m. at Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen Church. The statue unveiling will occur after.
