Gratry, Auguste Joseph Alphonse, Abbe

Gratry, Auguste Joseph Alphonse, abbe a French theologian, was born at Lille, March 30, 1805. He studied at Paris, became director of the College of Sainte-Barbe, in that city, in 1841, and chaplain of the superior normal school in 1846. He resigned this position in 1851, and, in conjunction with the abbe Petetot, founded the Oratory of the Immaculate Conception, and gave special attention to the conversion and instruction of the Parisian youth. In 1861 he was appointed vicargeneral of Orleans, and in 1863 he became professor of moral theology in the Sorbonne. He attacked Renan and the Rationalists with great vigor in 1864; and in 18.7 he was elected a member of the French Academy. He withdrew from the Oratory in 1869 on account of the unfriendly attitude assumed towards him by that institution, because of his connection with father Hyacinthe and the International League of Peace. He set forth his views of the position of the two parties in the Vatican Council in two letters, in 1870, but was constrained to retract in 1872. He died at Montreux, Switzerland, February 6 of the same year. His principal works are, Etude sur la Sophistique Contemporaine (Paris, 1851; 4th ed. 1863): — De la Connaissance de Dieu (1853, 2 volumes; 7th ed. 1864), which received the prize from the French Academy: — Logique (1853, 2 volumes; 2d ed. 1858): — De la Connaissance de l'Ame (1858, 2 volumes): — La Philosophie du Credo (1861): — Commentaire sur l'Evangile Selon Saint-Matthieu (1863-65, 2 volumes): — La Morale et la Loi de l'Histoire (1868, 2 volumes; 2d ed. 1871), in which he declares the French revolution to be the true regeneration of human society: Lettres sur

la Religion (1869): — Les Sources de la. Regeneration Sociale (1871). See Perraud, Les Derniers Jours du Pere Gratry; L'Oratoire de France au dix septieme et au dix-neuvieme Siecle; Bastide, in Lichtenberger's Encyclop. des Sciences Religienses, s.v.; Literarischer Handweiser fur das Katholische Deutschland, 1872, No. 210. (B.P.)