Alberto Hurtado

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Alberto Hurtado

Luis Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga (born January 22, 1901 in Viña del Mar , Chile , † August 18, 1952 in Santiago de Chile ) was a Jesuit and is a saint of the Catholic Church . He founded the El Hogar de Cristo homeless project and brought hundreds of homeless children off the streets.

Life

After the early death of his father, at the age of four, Hurtado moved with his mother and brother to Santiago de Chile , where he also attended school. After leaving school he studied at the Pontifical University in Santiago jurisprudence and was thereafter initially worked as a lawyer.

In 1923 he entered the Jesuit order. After studying in Chile, Argentina, Barcelona (Spain) and at the Catholic University of Leuven ( Belgium ), he was ordained a priest on August 24, 1933.

After his return to Chile in 1936 he taught at the Jesuit school “St. Ignatius ”, at the seminary, at an evening school and at the Pontifical University in Santiago .

From 1944 he collected money, jewelry and land for his homeless project El Hogar de Cristo , German "The House of Christ". The goal was simple: "Crear un Hogar para los que no tienen techo" - to create a home for those who have no roof over their heads. In September 1945 he was able to open the first emergency shelter for children, the weak and the elderly on Calle López. In 1946 a large building for people in need followed on Calle Chorrillos, a street that is now called Father Hurtados. The priest drove his little green bus from bridge to bridge on the Rio Mapocho to collect homeless children, give them warm food, a bed and clean clothes. A particular concern for him was the upbringing and training of his home children, most of the professions he had learned and some of them were even able to complete a degree. Today El Hogar de Cristo is the largest charity in Chile, has 46 branches across the country and cares for 32,000 people in need every day.

In June 1945, Father Hurtado and others founded the Acción Sindical y Económica Chilena (ASICH), which aims to achieve union goals based on the Church's social teaching .

Father Hurtado died of cancer on August 18, 1952.

character

"He could not see any pain without wanting to alleviate it immediately, nor an emergency without looking for a means to remedy it."

- Fr Damián Symon

Beatification and Canonization

Alberto Hurtado was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 16, 1994 .

On October 23, 2005, the canonization took place together with the canonization of Josef Bilscewski , Gaetano Catanoso , Sigismund Goradsdowski and Felix of Nicosia by Pope Benedict XVI. These were the first canonizations by Benedict XVI. After Teresa of Jesus, Father Hurtado is the second Chilean to be canonized.

7,000 Chilean pilgrims traveled to Rome for the canonization, including many of Father Hurtado's former children. In an emotional television documentary, they gave testimony to the work of the poor priest from Viña del Mar.

His feast day is August 18th.

Honors

Named after Alberto Hurtado:

Fonts (selection)

  • ¿Es Chile un pais católico? Santiago (Chile) 1941.
  • Humanismo social. Santiago (Chile) 1947.
  • The order of social cristiano en los documentos de la jerarquía católica. 2 volumes. Santiago (Chile) 1947.
  • Sindicalismo: historia-teoría-práctica. Santiago (Chile), 1950.

literature

Web links

Commons : Alberto Hurtado  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alberto Hurtado
  2. ^ Synod: At the end of the papal mass with canonizations ( memento of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Vatican Radio on October 23, 2005.
  3. ↑ From London Bridge to Wapping: JRS-UK goes east . In: Jesuits & Friends , issue 79 (Summer 2011), p. 20.
personal data
SURNAME Hurtado, Alberto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hurtado Cruchaga, Luis Alberto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chilean Jesuit and saint of the Catholic Church
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Viña del Mar , Chile
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1952
Place of death Santiago de Chile