Alberto Hurtado

Alberto Hurtado (born Luis Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga on January 22, 1901 in Viña del Mar, Chile – August 18, 1952 in Santiago, Chile), popularly known in Chile as Padre Hurtado (Spanish for "Father Hurtado"), was a Chilean Jesuit priest, lawyer, social worker, and writer, of Basque ancestry.

Alberto Hurtado was born in Viña del Mar, Chile, on January 22, 1901, to an aristocratic family.

After the death of his father when Alberto was four years old, his mother, with just two small sons, decided to sell their large estate.

Unfortunately the buyer defrauded her.

The family, now impoverished, was forced to live with a succession of relatives.

From an early age, Hurtado experienced what it meant to be poor and without a home.

Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to attend the prestigious, all-boys, Jesuit school of St. Ignacio, Santiago, Chile (1909–17).

During this time, he volunteered at the Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Andacollo, Santiago, a Catholic parish and school in a poor neighborhood of Santiago, where he assisted in the office and was librarian.

From 1918 to 1923, he attended the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, studying in its law school and writing his thesis on labour law.

After interrupting his studies for obligatory military service, he earned his degree in August 1923.

Hurtado entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1923.

In 1925 he went to Córdoba, Argentina, where he studied humanities.

In 1927 he was sent to Barcelona, Spain, to study philosophy and theology.

When the Jesuits were suppressed in Spain in 1931, he continued his studies in theology at Louvain, Belgium.

As late as 1931, the official organ of the party aligned with the church hierarchy refused to publish the papal encyclical Quadragesimo anno and considered it "an orientation directed to other parts of the world but not Chile."

He was ordained a priest there on August 24, 1933, and in 1935 he obtained a doctorate in pedagogy and psychology.

Before returning to Chile, Hurtado visited social and educational centers in Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

He returned to Chile in January 1936 and took up his post as professor of religion at Colegio San Ignacio and of Pedagogy at the Catholic University of Santiago.

He was entrusted with the Sodality of Our Lady for the students, and he involved them in teaching catechism to the poor.

Conservative Catholics in Chile had difficulty accepting the church's social teachings.

In 1936, Hurtado authored an article entitled The Priesthood Crisis In Chile, which addressed the problem of the shortage of priests in Chile; his analysis was criticized as "exaggerated".

He criticized the quality of catechism instruction offered in Chile and wrote that young men often signed up as catechists but lacked the necessary certificate.

In the book, Hurtado published the results of a 1939 survey of Chilean religious practices and reported that only 9% of Chilean women and 3.5% of Chilean men regularly attended Mass.

The book was heavily criticised by more conservative Catholics, who accused Hurtado of being a Communist.

Keeping in mind his own origins, and ever grateful for the help he and his family had received when they were in great difficulties, Hurtado was led to active social involvement.

His strong faith was transformed into action with his founding of an organization similar to Boys Town in the United States.

His shelters, called Hogar de Cristo (Home of Christ), took in all children in need of food and shelter, abandoned or not.

In 1940, Hurtado was appointed diocesan director of the Catholic Action youth movement and he served as its national director from 1941 to 1944.

Also in 1941, Hurtado authored Is Chile a Catholic Country? The book published statistics demonstrating a lack of priests assigned to the working class and rural populations, and it reported on parishes that had one priest assigned to 10,000 laypeople spread across huge geographic areas.

He advocated an increase in the number of priests and better education for them.

Almost half of Chile's clergy were foreigners, including missionaries from the United States and Canada, who rode circuits of towns to administer the sacraments.

Most Chileans regarded devotion to the Virgin and the saints as more important than attending Mass or receiving the Eucharist, which they could not do regularly.

He founded the Hogar de Cristo foundation in 1944.

The shelters multiplied throughout Chile and it is estimated that between 1945 and 1951 more than 850,000 children received some help from the movement.

He also purchased a 1946 green pickup truck and monitored the streets at night to help those in need that he could reach.

His own charisma brought him many collaborators and benefactors.

The movement was a huge success.

In 1947, Hurtado entered the labor movement.

Inspired by the social teaching of the church he founded the Chilean Trade Union Association, meant to train leaders and instill Christian values in the labor unions.

He was canonized on October 23, 2005, by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming his country's second saint.