8 ms·

"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

by 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.
- fluffything 7y ago
  That makes sense. Here in Germany, if you go to a church on easter, christmas, etc. you'd be surprised that most of the people in church are Polish immigrants and their German children. I don't know why, but Polish people are the most religious community I know here.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Because Poland has a long and complicated history with the Catholic church. For a lot of people, the Catholic Church represented the only oasis of freedom during the communist rule after WW2 and before 1989, and can be credited with accelerating the end of communism in Poland, especially with a Polish pope being elected merely a decade earlier. Nowadays though I would call it what it is - it's cancer growing unchecked on the Polish state. And I don't mean the religion - I mean the Catholic Church of Poland is constantly meddling in Politics, influencing new policies, Polish bishops are almost celebrities with a huge amount of wealth, the church does not pay taxes, they are one of the largest land owners in Poland....it's a frightening insitution that only seems to be growing in strength, you'd think young people would turn away from it, but with the current right-wing government literally saying that those who don't defend the church are not real Poles it's quite obvious what the party line is - either you are with the church or you are not welcome.
    - krychu 7y ago
      Church is also the community of people coming together, it’s nuns and priests going on missions to countries in need, it’s priests doing Sunday service for people who believe. Have you excluded these from your definition of Church or do you think these are also cancer?
      - pluma 7y ago
        That's religion, not church. Church is an institution. The Catholic church (and apparently particularly the Polish chapter of it) is rotten to its core. That there are good or oblivious people working for it doesn't invalidate that.

by roel_v 7y ago

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.

fluffything 7y ago
That makes sense. Here in Germany, if you go to a church on easter, christmas, etc. you'd be surprised that most of the people in church are Polish immigrants and their German children. I don't know why, but Polish people are the most religious community I know here.
- gambiting 7y ago
  Because Poland has a long and complicated history with the Catholic church. For a lot of people, the Catholic Church represented the only oasis of freedom during the communist rule after WW2 and before 1989, and can be credited with accelerating the end of communism in Poland, especially with a Polish pope being elected merely a decade earlier. Nowadays though I would call it what it is - it's cancer growing unchecked on the Polish state. And I don't mean the religion - I mean the Catholic Church of Poland is constantly meddling in Politics, influencing new policies, Polish bishops are almost celebrities with a huge amount of wealth, the church does not pay taxes, they are one of the largest land owners in Poland....it's a frightening insitution that only seems to be growing in strength, you'd think young people would turn away from it, but with the current right-wing government literally saying that those who don't defend the church are not real Poles it's quite obvious what the party line is - either you are with the church or you are not welcome.
  - krychu 7y ago
    Church is also the community of people coming together, it’s nuns and priests going on missions to countries in need, it’s priests doing Sunday service for people who believe. Have you excluded these from your definition of Church or do you think these are also cancer?
    - pluma 7y ago
      That's religion, not church. Church is an institution. The Catholic church (and apparently particularly the Polish chapter of it) is rotten to its core. That there are good or oblivious people working for it doesn't invalidate that.