AUGUSTE

JOSEPH

See also:

• ALPHONSE, COUNT OF TOULOUSE AND OF POITIERS (I220-1271)

ALPHONSE

See also:

• AUGUSTE JOSEPH ALPHONSE GRATRY (1805-1872)

GRATRY (1805-1872)  , French author and theologian, was born at Lille on the loth of March 18o5 . He was educated at the fcole Polytechnique, Paris, and, 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 Strassburg as professor of the Petit Seminaire, he was appointed director of the College Stanislas in Paris in 1842 and, in 1847, chaplain of the lcole Normale Superieure . 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 . Petetot, cure 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 on the 6th of February 1872 . His chief works are: De la connaissance de Dieu, opposing Positivism (1855); La Logique (1856); Les Sources, conseils pour la conduite de 1 esprit (1861–1862); La Philosophic du credo (1861); Commentaire sur l'evangile de Saint Matthieu (1863); Jesus-Christ, lettres a M . Renan (1864) ; Les Sophistes et la critique (in controversy with E . Vacherot) (1864); La Morale et la loi de 1'histoire, setting forth his social views (1868); Mgr . 1'eveque d'Orleans et Mgr .

1'archeveque de

Malines (1869), containing a clear exposition of the historical arguments against the doctrine of papal infallibility . There is a selection of Gratry's writings and appreciation of his style by the Abbe Pichot, in Pages choisies des Grands Ecrivains series, published by Armand-Colin (1897) . See also the critical study by the oratorian A . Chauvin, L'Abbe Gratry (1901); Le Pere Gratry (i 9oo), and Les Derniers fours du Pere Gratry et son testament spirituel, (1872), by Cardinal Adolphe Perraud, Gratry's friend and disciple .