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This great doctor of the Church was born in Swabia, Germany, and studied at the
University of Padua, where he was received into the Dominican Order by Blessed
Jordan of Saxony. He was sent to the University of Paris, the intellectual center
of western Europe. He was the first German Dominican friar to receive the degree of
Master of Theology. Albert did much to introduce the authentic writings of Aristotle to
western thought and pioneered the use of the inductive method. His original research in
the world of animals, birds, insects, plants and minerals aroused universal admiration,
even of Roger Bacon, his peer in scientific research. "The aim of natural science," said
St. Albert "is not simply to accept the statements of others, but to investigate the
causes that are at work in nature." Despite the prevailing contrary opinion, he
demonstrated that faith and science are autonomous disciplines although they go hand
in hand. He also held the Aristotelian opinion of the spherically of the earth.
His encyclopedic writings fill more than forty volumes and contain most of the knowledge
known in his day - physics, geography, astronomy, mineralogy, chemistry, biology,
mathematics, scripture, philosophy and theology. He was dubbed by his contemporaries
ALBERT THE GREAT and UNIVERSAL DOCTOR. He was the unquestioned master of scholastic
theology until surpassed by his pupil St. Thomas Aquinas. HE WAS A MAN SO SUPERIOR IN
EVERY SCIENCE, THAT HE CAN FITTINGLY BE CALLED THE WONDER AND MIRACLE OF OUR TIME.
(Ulrich of Strasbourg). Albert organized the new Dominican stadium in Cologne, and was
elected provincial of the German province. He preached the crusade throughout Germany
and Bohemia and was appointed bishop of Ratisbon. He preached in Rome and filled the
office of papal theologian in 1256. His fame was so great that when he was in Paris he
was obliged to preach in the open air because of the immense crowd of his listeners.
Our holy friar had a tender love for Our Lady and wrote extensively of her prerogatives.
It is said that the Queen of Heaven appeared to him during a critical moment in his
student days and bestowed on him the gift of extraordinary intellectual acumen. She
foretold that the loss of that gift would be a sign of approaching death. His memory
failed him during a public lecture three years before his death. He died in 1280 without
illness and surrounded by his beloved brethren. Pius XI proclaimed him saint, and
Doctor of the Church on December 16, 1931, and Pius XII proclaimed him patron saint
of natural scientists on December 16, 1941.
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