I think this now warrants a thread of its own outside the Decline of Religion thread. It's not so much about the decline of the religion, but what happens to its vast assets.
Plenty of stories recently about the RCC seeking to rezone lands. They own an astonishing amount of unused and underused land in and around towns and ciites, in Dublin in particular this land is potentially worth a fortune.
You may not be able to read some of these without a subscription but you get the gist just from the headlines.
Demolition and downsizing has already begun - the massive 3,500 capacity church in Finglas West was demolished last year and will be replaced with one with a capacity of 300. But the new Archibishop Farrell of Dublin has stated that outright church closures and parish amalgamations are inevitable. The diocese has now submitted a list of 33 church sites in the Dublin city council area they would like to see rezoned for development.
Under the current zonings they can't immediately be sold as development land. It's not clear though what sort of "community" alternative usage is envisaged by DCC or how that would come about, or why the RCC would facilitate that when it's very much in its financial interest not to.
Then there's what happens to all the money this will realise. Will it be used for the benefit of the Irish people from whence it came? Victim compensation paid finally? or will it just be shovelled back to the Vatican?
With a rapidly shrinking and ageing clergy, who is going to manage these assets in the coming decades? Orders of nuns in Ireland are already all but extinct and have hived their assets off into obscure trusts and "charity" holding companies (such as at St. Vincent's) and the Christian Brothers did similar with ownership of schools divested into ERST (although, not certain school playing fields which have been lucratively sold off, to the great detriment of the schools concerned).
The Church of Ireland has faced serious decline for years now and on a relatively larger scale - although some small churches nominally still in use see only a handful of services a year, many others have been sold off. Former churches are now apartments, offices, even pubs. One or two are mosques. Could or would the RCC allow churches to be repurposed in similar ways or will many of them just be demolished? What about the listed status of some churches?
Farrell seems very much of the view that inaction and wishful thinking have gone on for far too long and that realistically the church in Ireland has to prepare for a very different future. It's going to be very interesting how all of this pans out, and given the longstanding housing crisis, urban land ownership and how it's used should be a concern of everyone not just churchgoers.
