15/08/2013
Jesuit Refugee Service UK is based at the Hurtado Centre in
London. Why is the Centre named for him and what relevance does this Jesuit
have for JRS-UK’s work?
“I hold that every
poor man, every vagrant, every beggar is Christ carrying his cross. And as Christ, we must love and help
him. We must treat him as a brother, a
human being like ourselves. If we were
to start a campaign of love for the poor and homeless, we would, in a short
time, do away with depressing scenes of begging, children sleeping in doorways
and women with babies in their arms fainting in our streets.” St Alberto
Hurtado SJ
Canonized in October 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, Alberto
Hurtado Cruchaga was born on 22nd, January 1901 in Chile. The death of his father when he was four
years old meant that the family – his brother and his mother – knew great
hardship with Alberto and his brother moving from relative to relative.
This experience caused his heart to want to tackle social issues. He studies labour law but rather than pursue
a career in law, he enters the Jesuit novitiate in 1925. This leads to further studies: humanities,
philosophy, theology. He obtains a
doctorate in pedagogy and psychology in 1935, two years after his ordination as
a priest.
His heart’s desire to tackle social inequality not far from
his mind, he sets up the first Hogar de Cristo (Home of Christ) shelter to take
in children in need of food and shelter.
More shelters are opened around the country and it is estimated that
between 1945 and 1951, more than 850,000 children were helped by them.
Hurtado dies in Santiago of pancreatic cancer in 1952, a
much loved man. Still popular in Chile,
his desire to treat every human being as “a human being like ourselves”
underpins the ethos of every organisation bearing his name.
Here in Wapping, JRS at the Hurtado Centre seeks to just do
that: be a refuge for our fellow human-beings fed up with the bureaucracy of
the asylum-seeking process or fed up with surviving instead of living and
fulfilling their ambitions and plans.
Every Thursday, we get together, talk, have coffee and just
be. Why don’t you join us one Thursday
morning and help keep the legacy of Alberto Hurtado alive?
The feast day of St Alberto Hurtado SJ is 18th
August. To find out more about the
Hurtado Jesuit Centre: www.hurtadocentre.org.uk
