Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry

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Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry (March 10, 1805 - February 6, 1872) was a French author and theologian

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[edit] Biography

Gratry was born at Lille.

He was educated at the École Polytechnique of Paris. After a period of mental struggle which he has described in Souvenirs de ma jeunesse, he was ordained priest in 1832. After a stay at Strasbourg as professor of the Petit Séminaire, he was appointed director of the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1842 and, in 1847, chaplain of the École Normale Supérieure. He became vicar-general of Orleans in 1861, professor of ethics at the Sorbonne in 1862, and, on the death of Barante, a member of the French Academy in 1867, where he occupied the seat formerly held by Voltaire.

Together with M. Pétot, curé of Saint Roch, he reconstituted the Oratory of the Immaculate Conception, a society of priests mainly devoted to education. Gratry was one of the principal opponents of the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, but in this respect he submitted to the authority of the Vatican Council.

He died at Montreux in Switzerland.

[edit] Selected works

  • De la connaissance de Dieu, opposing Positivism (1855)
  • La Logique (1856)
  • Les Sources, conseils pour la conduite de l'esprit (1861-1862)
  • La Philosophie du credo (1861)
  • Commentaire sur l'évangile de Saint Matthieu (1863)
  • Jésus-Christ: réponse à M. Renan (1864)
  • Les Sophistes et la critique (in controversy with E Vacherot) (1864)
  • La Morale et la loi de l'histoire, setting forth his social views (1868)
  • Mgr. l'évêque d'Orléans et Mgr. l'archevêque de Malines (1869), containing a clear exposition of the historical arguments against the doctrine of papal infallibility.

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Preceded by
Prosper Brugière, baron de Barante		 Seat 33
Académie française
1867-1872		 Succeeded by
René Taillandier