Auguste Gratry

Vocation

French author and theologian. Gratry was born at Lille and educated at the École Polytechniqueof 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 others (abbé Pétitot, curé of Saint Roch, andHyacinthe de Valroger) he reconstituted the Oratory of Jesus and of Mary Immaculate, 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 First Vatican Council. Gratry exercised a great influence during his life by his personality — distinguished for greatness of thought, generosity of heart, and optimistic enthusiasm — and, after his death, by his works. In the last years his books have been frequently reprinted He died 6 February 1872 at Montreux in Switzerland. Link to Wikipedia biography