NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      SANTIAGO (CWNews.com) - Thousands of Chilean families shared bread and wine, read the Bible together, and committed themselves to concrete acts of solidarity to celebrate the feast of Blessed Alberto Hurtado this week.

      Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest who died of cancer on August 1952 after creating the largest Catholic social service in Latin America, became after his beatification in October 1994, one of the most popular figures in Chile. This year, his successors at the Hogar de Cristo (The Home of Christ) decided to celebrate the anniversary of his death by inviting Chilean families to hold a special dinner of solidarity. The dinner, consisting of bread, wine, and fruit juice -- all three of which are inexpensive products in Chile -- was opened in each home with a prayer and the lighting of a candle made by the youngest member of the family.

      During the dinner, the Bible was read, stories about Father Hurtado's life told by parents, and verbal expressions of love shared among family members. At the end, each person committed to a special act of solidarity with another family member, and the family as a whole committed to provide help to the needy. The money collected during the dinners was donated to the Hogar de Cristo. The "Dinner of Solidarity" campaign was launched on August 17 by Archbishop Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa of Santiago during a Mass celebrated at the Padre Alberto Hurtado shrine, at the Hogar de Cristo headquarters.

      "Blessed Hurtado's life was fully devoted to helping the needy and to living the social consequences of our faith," said the archbishop. "So the best way to honor him is by putting our faith in action. He added said that Father Hurtado was "the herald of the care for youth and the preferential love for the poor expressed years later by the Latin American episcopate."