8 ms·

As membership declines, just wondering what happens to all the cash the Churches are sitting on, from property, to art, to chuch tax collections. Going to be in

by hos234 7y ago

As membership declines, just wondering what happens to all the cash the Churches are sitting on, from property, to art, to chuch tax collections. Going to be interesting to see what the next (younger) gen of church leaders do with it...maybe they need an innovation center to modernize the useful aspects of religion.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
number6 7y ago
Money will find it's way
TomMarius 7y ago
Should be given back to people.
hunta2097 7y ago
Europe is in a post-christianity phase, it's going to be interesting. I'm guessing they would have no choice but to sell off property and land to pay their clergy? In the UK lots of churches have either been converted to housing or commercial venues. It's really weird going to a kid's play center in an impressive old church but it happens: https://twitter.com/RainbowFunTqy https://twitter.com/RainbowFunTqy
- keiferski 7y ago
  Pittsburgh has quite a few former churches that are now bars, breweries, music venues, or other cultural centers. Here's a popular one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Brew_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Brew_Works
- twic 7y ago
  There's also a business of subletting church buildings to other churches. I once wandered into St Dunstan in the West, just off Fleet Street in London, and found that there was a Romanian orthodox service in full swing.
skissane 7y ago
But will the membership decline continue in the long-run? Within the Catholic church, there is a traditionalist/conservative minority, who are growing basically through having a high birth rate – rejecting contraception and pre-marital sex, they tend to marry young and have lots of kids. Not all of those kids will follow in their parents' footsteps, but the majority of them probably will. Though these conservatives/traditionalists are a minority now, as the decades pass by their numbers will grow and grow, and may eventually grow to the point of no longer being a minority within Catholicism[1], but instead becoming the new majority. At that point, the decline may rebound into a new period of growth. [1] a minority in wealthy countries like Germany. Leaving Catholicism in places like Africa out of the discussion, because the situation there is very different
- avar 7y ago
  Europe has entire countries where pretty much 100% of the population were extremist Catholic zealots with huge families by modern standards just a couple of hundred years ago. Today those countries have some of the lowest birth rates in Europe, e.g. Spain and Italy[1] pretty much trail the pack. The data suggests that your hypothesis is false. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U...
  - keiferski 7y ago
    The above commenter was referencing specific populations, not entire countries. A good comparable example might be Orthodox Jews, which are projected to become the majority of the Jewish population in a short period of time (because of high birth rates, among other reasons.) However I'm not sure if the equivalent Christian groups are as prevalent in Europe. High birth rates are an important aspect of Orthodox demographics: They are the most reproductive of all Jews, and ultra-Orthodox communities have some of the highest rates in the world, with 6 children per an average household. Non-existent levels of intermarriage (unlike some liberal Jewish denominations, Orthodoxy vehemently opposes the phenomenon) also contribute to their growing share in the world's Jewish population. While American Orthodox are but 10% of all Jews, among children, their share rises immensely: An estimated 61% of Jewish children in New York belong to Orthodox households, 49% to ultra-Orthodox. Similar patterns are observed in Britain and other countries. With present trends sustained, Orthodox Jews are projected to numerically dominate British Jewry by 2031, and American Jewry by 2058. However, their growth is balanced by large numbers of members leaving their communities and observant lifestyle. Among the 2013 PEW respondents, 17% of those under 30 who were raised Orthodox disaffiliated (in earlier generations, this trend was far more prevalent, and 77% of those over 65 left). It is estimated that over 20% of those raised religious Zionist in Israel disaffiliate, and greater numbers adopt a secularized lifestyle and define themselves as "living on the spectrum (of religion)". Loose observance among young adults is common even when they retain formal affiliation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism#Demographics
roel_v 7y ago
"from property" In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and have to be preserved. There is one I can see from my window that has been under renovation for 20-something years; every couple of years there is a 'competition' to find someone with the best plan of what to do with it, and they never find anyone because a) it's a monument so you're very restricted in what modifications you can do with it; and b) it's very expensive to maintain (let alone renovate). So yeah, whatever money they have remaining in art etc has been dumped into pretty much worthless property over the last decades. A few of the remaining nuns around my corner distribute a door to door church flyer once every few months (blissfully ignoring any 'no advertising' stickers on any mailbox, bless their hearts), and they report on the financial state of the parish in it every once in a while - judging from how excited they sound when they've collected a few 100 at a service that drew a large crowd, it's not all glitter and gold in the church (at the lower levels at least). Oh and another church around the corner (I have literally a dozen within a 1km radius from my house) sells christmas trees from their parking lot every year to keep the heating on - not exactly a sign of opulence either.
- gambiting 7y ago
  In the meantime, Poland is not only building lots of new churches, it even builds new cathedrals adorned in gold[0]. Even the little town I'm from(only 20k population) has 3 churches, and they are all full of gold and it's common knowledge that the local priests are most likely one of the wealthiest people around. [0]This was only finished in 2004, and is the most disgustingly oppulent building I have ever seen: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_Naj%C5%9Bwi%C4%99tszej_Maryi_Panny_Liche%C5%84skiej_w_Licheniu_Starym https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_Naj%C5%9Bwi%C4%99tsze... You'd think all of this would turn people away from the church, but it doesn't seem that way - each church usually has to hold 4-5 masses every Sunday and for every one the church is full to the brim, with people standing outside because there's no more room in the church itself.
mcv 7y ago
Do churches have so much money? Young churches are frequently short on money (which they need primarily to rent a building and to hire a preacher). Older churches have lots of buildings, but are rarely swimming in cash these days.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tathougies 7y ago
  Catholic religious priests (religious here means they are part of an order, like monks) cant be paid a salary. They have to rely on alms and their orders money since theyve taken personal vows of poverty
- hnal943 7y ago
  Churches in America are funded by the people that attend them. I think churches in Europe actually receive tax money, which changes the equation pretty significantly.
  - mcv 7y ago
    Churches in Europe are funded by the people that attend them. At least Dutch churches are, but I think this is true in most European countries. A long time ago, they were indeed funded by tax, at least some churches in some countries, but that's changed with a better understanding of the separation of church and state.
rambojazz 7y ago
I hope at least all their physical properties (artworks, churches, monasteries, land) goes to the state and is used for social good.
- hn23 7y ago
  Ha ha ha. The church would not have lasted that long if...
- xkde 7y ago
  I’m curious - who, in this model, gets to define the “social good”?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mschaef 7y ago
Speaking from experience in the Philadelphia region, the legacy of old buildings is something of a burden. The area I'm in now was built up before cars were commonplace - implication being churches built closely enough to be within walking distance. Flash forward a century, and the situation is a combination of fewer people attending churches and more ability for those that do to travel. There are also more competing interests for people's time, so there's less ability and desire for parishioners to engage in volunteer activities at churches. Attending church on Sunday morning might mean missing a little league game and attending a work day at the parish might mean missing a school event or similar. (With fewer activities centered around church than before, there's more opportunity for schedule contention that the churches often lose.) What this means for an individual parish is that there are fewer resources available for maintaining an aging and likely historic building. There are fewer people committing money to the church and fewer people able to volunteer work at the church. The flip side of this is that there are also fewer practical reasons to maintain an old church. Shutting down a church with 50 people in weekly attendance is easier than shutting down a church with 300 people in attendance. The trouble with this line of reasoning is that it papers over some of the more sentimental reasons for keeping a parish running. Those 50 remaining folks are also the people most likely to have a strong connection to the parish... or they'd have already left. So individual parishes can have more inertia to stay open than you might expect. Moving up to the diocese level, a parish shutting down can transfer many of the funding/transport issues from the parish to the diocese. The diocese, which may have problems of its own, now has additional burdens to take on as it both loses revenue (from parish remittances) and gains expenses. This implies a potentially strong incentive for a diocese to sell off old properties. The trouble with a sale is the large number of stakeholders that might be opposed to such a sale. Never underestimate the difficulties that can be thrown up by 'interested parties'. Shutting down a parish can easily involve current and former parishoners, the diocese level, local planning/zoning boards, historical building regulations... the list goes on and on. (And you still have to find a developer with the intent, resources, and ability to take on the property and turn it into something the community wants.) The reason I go down this path is mainly to illustrate that the notion of churches as pools of free resources is somewhat dubious at best. Whatever resources are there are not only special purpose to begin with, but also can sequestered behind history, regulation, and interests that are difficult to overcome.
giardini 7y ago
Turn them into bed-and-breakfast inns or hotels. Hire some Indians to help (there's a caste that specializes in maintaining hotels/inns/etc. and are very good at it) if necessary. Get the monastery off the public dole if possible.

by hos234 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

number6 7y ago

Money will find it's way

TomMarius 7y ago

Should be given back to people.

hunta2097 7y ago

Europe is in a post-christianity phase, it's going to be interesting. I'm guessing they would have no choice but to sell off property and land to pay their clergy? In the UK lots of churches have either been converted to housing or commercial venues. It's really weird going to a kid's play center in an impressive old church but it happens: https://twitter.com/RainbowFunTqy https://twitter.com/RainbowFunTqy

keiferski 7y ago
Pittsburgh has quite a few former churches that are now bars, breweries, music venues, or other cultural centers. Here's a popular one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Brew_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_Brew_Works
twic 7y ago
There's also a business of subletting church buildings to other churches. I once wandered into St Dunstan in the West, just off Fleet Street in London, and found that there was a Romanian orthodox service in full swing.

skissane 7y ago

But will the membership decline continue in the long-run? Within the Catholic church, there is a traditionalist/conservative minority, who are growing basically through having a high birth rate – rejecting contraception and pre-marital sex, they tend to marry young and have lots of kids. Not all of those kids will follow in their parents' footsteps, but the majority of them probably will. Though these conservatives/traditionalists are a minority now, as the decades pass by their numbers will grow and grow, and may eventually grow to the point of no longer being a minority within Catholicism[1], but instead becoming the new majority. At that point, the decline may rebound into a new period of growth. [1] a minority in wealthy countries like Germany. Leaving Catholicism in places like Africa out of the discussion, because the situation there is very different

avar 7y ago
Europe has entire countries where pretty much 100% of the population were extremist Catholic zealots with huge families by modern standards just a couple of hundred years ago. Today those countries have some of the lowest birth rates in Europe, e.g. Spain and Italy[1] pretty much trail the pack. The data suggests that your hypothesis is false. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U...
- keiferski 7y ago
  The above commenter was referencing specific populations, not entire countries. A good comparable example might be Orthodox Jews, which are projected to become the majority of the Jewish population in a short period of time (because of high birth rates, among other reasons.) However I'm not sure if the equivalent Christian groups are as prevalent in Europe. High birth rates are an important aspect of Orthodox demographics: They are the most reproductive of all Jews, and ultra-Orthodox communities have some of the highest rates in the world, with 6 children per an average household. Non-existent levels of intermarriage (unlike some liberal Jewish denominations, Orthodoxy vehemently opposes the phenomenon) also contribute to their growing share in the world's Jewish population. While American Orthodox are but 10% of all Jews, among children, their share rises immensely: An estimated 61% of Jewish children in New York belong to Orthodox households, 49% to ultra-Orthodox. Similar patterns are observed in Britain and other countries. With present trends sustained, Orthodox Jews are projected to numerically dominate British Jewry by 2031, and American Jewry by 2058. However, their growth is balanced by large numbers of members leaving their communities and observant lifestyle. Among the 2013 PEW respondents, 17% of those under 30 who were raised Orthodox disaffiliated (in earlier generations, this trend was far more prevalent, and 77% of those over 65 left). It is estimated that over 20% of those raised religious Zionist in Israel disaffiliate, and greater numbers adopt a secularized lifestyle and define themselves as "living on the spectrum (of religion)". Loose observance among young adults is common even when they retain formal affiliation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism#Demographics

roel_v 7y ago

"from property" In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and have to be preserved. There is one I can see from my window that has been under renovation for 20-something years; every couple of years there is a 'competition' to find someone with the best plan of what to do with it, and they never find anyone because a) it's a monument so you're very restricted in what modifications you can do with it; and b) it's very expensive to maintain (let alone renovate). So yeah, whatever money they have remaining in art etc has been dumped into pretty much worthless property over the last decades. A few of the remaining nuns around my corner distribute a door to door church flyer once every few months (blissfully ignoring any 'no advertising' stickers on any mailbox, bless their hearts), and they report on the financial state of the parish in it every once in a while - judging from how excited they sound when they've collected a few 100 at a service that drew a large crowd, it's not all glitter and gold in the church (at the lower levels at least). Oh and another church around the corner (I have literally a dozen within a 1km radius from my house) sells christmas trees from their parking lot every year to keep the heating on - not exactly a sign of opulence either.

gambiting 7y ago
In the meantime, Poland is not only building lots of new churches, it even builds new cathedrals adorned in gold[0]. Even the little town I'm from(only 20k population) has 3 churches, and they are all full of gold and it's common knowledge that the local priests are most likely one of the wealthiest people around. [0]This was only finished in 2004, and is the most disgustingly oppulent building I have ever seen: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_Naj%C5%9Bwi%C4%99tszej_Maryi_Panny_Liche%C5%84skiej_w_Licheniu_Starym https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_Naj%C5%9Bwi%C4%99tsze... You'd think all of this would turn people away from the church, but it doesn't seem that way - each church usually has to hold 4-5 masses every Sunday and for every one the church is full to the brim, with people standing outside because there's no more room in the church itself.

mcv 7y ago

Do churches have so much money? Young churches are frequently short on money (which they need primarily to rent a building and to hire a preacher). Older churches have lots of buildings, but are rarely swimming in cash these days.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tathougies 7y ago
Catholic religious priests (religious here means they are part of an order, like monks) cant be paid a salary. They have to rely on alms and their orders money since theyve taken personal vows of poverty
hnal943 7y ago
Churches in America are funded by the people that attend them. I think churches in Europe actually receive tax money, which changes the equation pretty significantly.
- mcv 7y ago
  Churches in Europe are funded by the people that attend them. At least Dutch churches are, but I think this is true in most European countries. A long time ago, they were indeed funded by tax, at least some churches in some countries, but that's changed with a better understanding of the separation of church and state.

rambojazz 7y ago

I hope at least all their physical properties (artworks, churches, monasteries, land) goes to the state and is used for social good.

hn23 7y ago
Ha ha ha. The church would not have lasted that long if...
xkde 7y ago
I’m curious - who, in this model, gets to define the “social good”?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mschaef 7y ago

Speaking from experience in the Philadelphia region, the legacy of old buildings is something of a burden. The area I'm in now was built up before cars were commonplace - implication being churches built closely enough to be within walking distance. Flash forward a century, and the situation is a combination of fewer people attending churches and more ability for those that do to travel. There are also more competing interests for people's time, so there's less ability and desire for parishioners to engage in volunteer activities at churches. Attending church on Sunday morning might mean missing a little league game and attending a work day at the parish might mean missing a school event or similar. (With fewer activities centered around church than before, there's more opportunity for schedule contention that the churches often lose.) What this means for an individual parish is that there are fewer resources available for maintaining an aging and likely historic building. There are fewer people committing money to the church and fewer people able to volunteer work at the church. The flip side of this is that there are also fewer practical reasons to maintain an old church. Shutting down a church with 50 people in weekly attendance is easier than shutting down a church with 300 people in attendance. The trouble with this line of reasoning is that it papers over some of the more sentimental reasons for keeping a parish running. Those 50 remaining folks are also the people most likely to have a strong connection to the parish... or they'd have already left. So individual parishes can have more inertia to stay open than you might expect. Moving up to the diocese level, a parish shutting down can transfer many of the funding/transport issues from the parish to the diocese. The diocese, which may have problems of its own, now has additional burdens to take on as it both loses revenue (from parish remittances) and gains expenses. This implies a potentially strong incentive for a diocese to sell off old properties. The trouble with a sale is the large number of stakeholders that might be opposed to such a sale. Never underestimate the difficulties that can be thrown up by 'interested parties'. Shutting down a parish can easily involve current and former parishoners, the diocese level, local planning/zoning boards, historical building regulations... the list goes on and on. (And you still have to find a developer with the intent, resources, and ability to take on the property and turn it into something the community wants.) The reason I go down this path is mainly to illustrate that the notion of churches as pools of free resources is somewhat dubious at best. Whatever resources are there are not only special purpose to begin with, but also can sequestered behind history, regulation, and interests that are difficult to overcome.

giardini 7y ago

Turn them into bed-and-breakfast inns or hotels. Hire some Indians to help (there's a caste that specializes in maintaining hotels/inns/etc. and are very good at it) if necessary. Get the monastery off the public dole if possible.