The Vatican is drawing up guidelines for the sale of deconsecrated buildings
Does not God dwell here anymore? That is the question a conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University will be addressing later this year.
Starkly as it is couched, and poetic as it sounds, the question is in reality quite prosaic. The focus of the two-day gathering in November will be the decommissioning of places of worship and the management of the Church’s cultural heritage. In other words, it will seek an answer to the question: what to do with churches that have fallen into disuse and/or dilapidation beyond the means of dioceses to repair or beyond their reach due to contingent political circumstances?
