Driven by an inner vision she believes could only have come from God, Cabrini breaks through the opposition of Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini), an archbishop, the mayor and the entire Italian parliament (all men), to champion the poor and dispossessed in New York and elsewhere and build for them, from the late 1880s into early 1900s, the orphanages, schools and hospitals that will rescue them from hovels and gutters and change their life course.