St. Ignatius College, Santiago

St. Ignatius College, Santiago
Colegio San Ignacio Alonso Ovalle
Location
Alonso de Ovalle & San Ignacio, Santiago, Chile
Information
Type Jesuit, Catholic
Established 1856 (1856)
Administrator Jaime Laso Fresno
Rector Marcelo Mackenney Poblete
Gender Coeducational since 2015
Enrollment 1,313[1]
Mascot Devil
Affiliation Ignatian Educational Network, FLACSI
Teachers 89[1]
Website ColSanIgnSantiago

St. Ignatius College, Santiago, Chile, (Colegio San Ignacio Alonso Ovalle) is run by the Jesuit St. Ignatius Foundation as a part of the Ignatian Educational Network of Chile and the Latin American Federation of Jesuit Colleges, FLACSI. It has offered elementary and secondary education since 1856, and is the second oldest private school in the Chilean capital after the French Padres Franceses de Santiago.

History

In 1854 San Ignacio was founded by Jesuits from Buenos Aires at the behest of Rafael Valentín Valdivieso, Archbishop of Santiago, presumably to preserve the Catholic culture of the creole elite amidst the challenges of the mid-nineteenth century. The school opened in 1854 in an up-scale neighborhood of Santiago and within a year had 150 students. To the classroom building and Jesuit residence the Church of St. Ignatius was added in 1859, and later declared a national monument

From the 1920s the landed aristocracy who characterized the college were joined by the rising middle class. Among their teachers was an alumnus of the school who later became prominent as an advocate of social justice, Alberto Hurtado, canonized a saint by the Catholic Church in 2005.

In 1936 a stadium for the school was built in the El Bosque area of Santiago, which lead to the founding of another St. Ignatius school there in 1956. After 1980, to form leaders with Ignatian inspiration in the post-Vatican II church, the school became more involved in social works: the Mapuche missions, vacation projects, the lay missions, the factory work.

In 2006 the Superior General of the Jesuits Peter Hans Kolvenbach visited the school during celebrations of its 150th anniversary.[2] In 2013 the school welcomed its first layperson as rector.[3]

Prominent alumni

The school educated many of the Chilean Catholic ruling class during the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. It remained a boarding school until 1954, accommodating the children from farms and estates distant from the capital. While many students have distinguished themselves by their contributions to the social, political, and cultural life of the country, St. Albert Hurtado, founder of the Hogar de Cristo and the magazine Message, has been the most famous.

Born in the 19th century

Born in the 20th century

External references

References

  1. 1 2 FLACSI. Accessed 8 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "Historia". www.colegiosanignacio.cl. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  3. ↑ S.A.P., El Mercurio. "Tras 157 años de historia asume primer rector laico en el colegio San Ignacio de Alonso Ovalle". LaSegunda.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2017-03-16.

Coordinates: 33°26′51.28″S 70°39′22.87″W / 33.4475778°S 70.6563528°W / -33.4475778; -70.6563528

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