Saint Alberto Hurtado

Alberto Hurtado, SJ , popularly known as Padre Hurtado, was a Chilean Jesuit priest, lawyer, social worker, and writer of Basque ancestry. He founded the Hogar de Cristo foundation in 1944. Hurtado was canonized on October 23, 2005, by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming his country's second saint. 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. 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.