St. Albert the Great

Their story

Albert was born around 1200 in Bavaria, Germany, to a noble family. While studying at the university in Padua, he joined the Dominicans, the new order of preachers. He became one of the most brilliant teachers of the Middle Ages, lecturing in Paris and Cologne. Albert was curious about everything God had made. Besides theology and philosophy, he studied and wrote about plants, animals, minerals, the stars and the human body, carefully observing nature for himself. He believed that studying creation was a way of honoring the Creator, and that faith and science could never truly contradict each other, since both come from God. Albert’s most famous student was St. Thomas Aquinas. When other students mocked Thomas as slow, Albert recognized his genius. Albert later served briefly as bishop of Regensburg, then returned to teaching. After Thomas died, the elderly Albert traveled to Paris to defend his former student’s teaching. Albert died in Cologne in 1280. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931, and Pope Pius XII named him patron of those who study the natural sciences.