While Christine Flowers is exercised about Mayor Kenney not respecting the people who built this country by not supporting Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of North America, she might want to check out where Columbus actually did land, because he never set foot in North America. His first foray when he traveled West was to the Caribbean Islands and what eventually became Bermuda. He later explored Central and South America, but he never set foot anywhere near the United States.
If she wants any great Italian, maybe she should consider Mother Frances Cabrini (there is even a college in the Philadelphia suburbs named after her). Mother Cabrini was even advised by the pope to travel to the U.S. to help Italian immigrants, starting catechism and education classes for Italian immigrants as well as providing for orphans needs, and in fact Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants. Pope Francis said his religious vocation was inspired by Mother Cabrini’s ministry to his family and the Italian immigrant community in Argentina. Among her many honors, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2020, Colorado replaced Columbus Day with Cabrini Day.
I’m neither Italian nor Catholic, but I’d be overjoyed if instead of honoring someone who never set foot in North America, we honored this great lady, who founded the Missionary Sacred Heart of Jesus especially to help Italian immigrants in the United States. Mother Cabrini was canonized in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. Rachel Garber | South Philadelphia
