Pope Leo on Saturday exalted the first American saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, as a model for Christians today to care for migrants in need, as he visited her birthplace during a day trip to northern Italy.

Leo, who has clashed with the Trump administration over its migrant crackdown, urged young people in particular to learn about Cabrini’s life and service, once again confirming history’s first US pope as the heir to Pope Francis in prioritising the plight of migrants.

Leo prayed before Cabrini’s tomb in a basilica named for her in her birthplace in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, near Milan, and presided over an evening prayer service. The visit to northern Italy is part of Leo’s summertime grand tour of Italy to visit key cities to get to know his flock.

Cabrini, the patron saint of migrants, is well known to many Americans for her work caring for Italian immigrants in the United States at the turn of the last century. Her work went beyond the US, however, as she criss-crossed the globe building schools, hospitals and orphanages for those who had nothing.

After she died in 1917, as a naturalised US citizen in Leo’s native Chicago, Cabrini was beatified and then canonised in 1946 as the first American saint.

Leo asks what Francis would do

In praising Cabrini on Saturday, Leo said she was inspired by her faith to help those migrants who had left everything behind to try to find a better life.