Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry

1805-1872. French Roman Catholic scholar. Born in Lille, he was irreligious until in 1822 he awoke to the folly of worldly ambitions. He studied theology at Strasbourg, was ordained (1834), was a college director and chaplain, then in 1863 was appointed professor of moral theology in the Sorbonne. He was elected to the French Academy four years later. He first opposed papal infallibility, but submitted to the decrees, being much concerned for a renewal in French church life which led to his work in restoring the Oratory.* His works are apologetic, even to including a proof for the existence of God with the aid of mathematics: De la connaissance de Dieu (1855), Les Sources (1862), Les Sophistes et la critique (1864), and La Morale et la loi de l'histoire (1868).