The Romantic Movement
The 19th century was the great age of the so-called ‘Romantic movement’, which can be a misleading title as it has nothing to do with sentimental love. It took its cue from the French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau (+1778) who wished to re-establish the link between humanity and nature, which was seen to be broken by the growth of commercial trade and the Industrial Revolution.
The Romantic movement in particular looked back to the Middle Ages. Although the word ‘medieval’ is often used negatively, the Middle Ages were thought – with a good deal of justification – to represent the high-water mark of the synthesis of human life: supernatural, human and material, all interwoven. This was taken up by a great German thinker, Johann Adam Möhler (+1838) who presented to the Church a renewed vision of the wholeness of Christ’s loving action in the world – compared with the Council of Trent’s tendency to lay everything out in narrow definitions.
When Möhler turned his attention to the Mass, he looked away from the over-emphasis on just one aspect – that of sacrifice – to the whole action of thanksgiving in Christ’s name.
The Romantic movement in the Church re-emphasised the medieval style in architecture, looking back to the great days of the monasteries, which in some countries, like our own, had been laid waste by the Reformation.
Many clergy adopted enthusiastically this movement. Möhler’s emphasis on the wholeness of worship gave rise to the so-called ‘Liturgical Movement’ which though hesitant at first was to lead eventually to the reforms of Vatican II. One of its early centres was the German cathedral city of Regensburg (Ratisbon). It is no coincidence that at this time there was re-founded the French Benedictine abbey of Solesmes (1833) which revived the proper use of Gregorian Chant in the Church.
Leading on from this, there was an enormous increase in the number of religious orders of men and women. Many of the male orders would provide priests for parishes. When the Jesuits, suppressed in 1773, were reconstituted in 1814, there were only 600 members left. By 1890 there were more than 15,000. Between 900AD and 1600, only 23 religious orders came into being; in the USA by 1960 there were more than 400. It is, however, true that many of these emptied of members as rapidly as they had once filled with them, once it became apparent that their monastic way of living (again, imitating the Middle Ages) was not appropriate for their particular vocation, to teaching, nursing, or suchlike.