Alberto Hurtado

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. 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.

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 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.

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 wrote three books: Social Humanism (1947), The Christian Social Order (1947) and Trade Unions (1950). He served as a confessor to the Falange Nacional, the precursor to the modern Christian Democratic Party. To disseminate the social teaching of the Church and help Christians reflect and act on the serious social problems faced by Chile, he founded in 1951 the periodical Mensaje ("Message"). He published numerous articles and books on labor issues in relation to the Catholic faith.

In 1952, Hurtado was stricken with intense pain and rushed to the hospital. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Day after day the media kept the country informed of Hurtado's state of health. Before his death he had become a national hero. After a brief battle with the illness, he died in Santiago.

Members of the Conservative Party denounced what they saw as Hurtado's endorsement of the National Falange, a party founded after young social Catholics split from the conservative party. There were also attacks from the left. An anonymous article published in Policarpo in 1982 called Hurtado "the last prophet of the bourgeoisie" while it contrasts him unfavorably with the figure of Enrique Alvear who is hailed as the "first Pastor of the Church of the poor in Chile". Clotario Blest, who like Hurtado was also intellectually indebted to Fernando Vives, is reported to have distanced himself from Hurtado.

Hurtado was beatified on October 16, 1994, by Pope John Paul II and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 23, 2005. St. Alberto was one of the first people to be elevated to sainthood during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI; he was also the second Chilean saint, after Saint Teresa of Los Andes.