“Costs of management and maintenance are too high”: In the heart of the Belgian capital, the Church of Saint Catherine will be dismantled and turned into a bazaar.
In the formerly Catholic Belgium (the country where King Baldwin refused to sign a law on abortion for reasons of conscience) a symbolic place of faith will be transformed into a covered fruit and vegetable market.
By decision of the Fabbrica of Saint Catherine, the homonymous Brussels church closed its doors on 31 December for deconsecration and transformation into a commercial location.
The Municipal Tourism Councilor, Philippe Close, justified the clamorous closure by budget cuts made necessary by maintenance costs which are “no longer sustainable.”
The sacred building was recently renovated, and the faithful are contesting the figures, asking that Saint Catherine's not be removed from worship.
Many other Brussels churches risk meeting the same fate.
Thus “Saint-Catherine” in Brussels could be “converted” into a covered market. Given the now widespread and long-lasting process of secularization (to which sex scandals covered up by the national hierarchy also contributed in countries like Belgium), it is no longer well-attended.
The building, owned by the Municipality of Brussels, is in bad repair and too large compared to the scarce number of faithful followers. Thus, starting 31 December, it will be closed, and a covered market may be installed inside it. It is estimated that around thirty churches in Brussels could be deconsecrated and renovated like this in the coming years.
In the past few months, the idea was to demolish Saint Catherine’s to build homes, but then it was decided to put in a market, leaving a small space for the faithful. Faithful Catholics mobilized to protest against the non-religious use of the building.
But even the Archdiocese of Brussels was open to the conversion of the church, admitting that the places of prayer in that area were “oversized” in comparison with the number of faithful.
They also argued the need to redefine with the administration, case by case, the use of certain churches for other functions.
The phenomenon of churches being sold and used for other activities while maintaining the original building is widespread throughout Northern Europe - especially in Great Britain, where around 50,000 places of worship have problems with maintenance costs, and many of these are now being utilized to host shops, markets, and offices.
The phenomenon is also occuring in Italy. There are already buildings renovated with kitchenettes, immersed in charming country settings, small and isolated, with ocean views, in city centers, baroque and magnificent, and converted into lofts.
All of them are deconsecrated churches, passed through the hands of the Church over centuries to private owners (mostly lapsed noble families) and put up for sale, where architects and designers transform them into chic houses and offices.
The growing phenomenon is widespread through Italy, and was recently noted by the web portal immobiliare.it. The site lists more than 360,000 property listings, about 50 of which were formerly houses of worship.
“The idea of doing an investigation on a national level occurred to us when an agent from Asti called us saying: ‘You know, I have to put out a new announcement, but it’s a little strange - it's a deconsecrated church,’” they explain. “This aroused our curiosity, and we started to research our data banks throughout Italy, finding many similar cases.”
The church in Asti is the baroque Confraternita di San Michele, built in the 18th century, which could boast a young Vittorio Alfieri as one of its parishioners. Now it is the property of two good women of the city.
The oldest deconsecrated church up for sale is in Volterra, built in the year 850 and worth €1.6 million. Some of these churches have already obtained a permit for change of intended use and thus can become dwellings: 170 meters of the Florentine church in Careggi are already equipped with kitchenettes.
Several already have a design to make them more comfortable. Disused chapels attached to convents, surrounded by extensive gardens, are much sought-after for vacation rentals - more profane than sacred, in any case. In the face of that first survey in April 2009, the Holy See stated its position: “It is not just a question of decorum or good taste, but also of sensitivity toward religion,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation of Bishops. “A church, even if deconsecrated, is a very different thing than some shed where maybe Mass is celebrated for a time.”
We must be vigilant, therefore, about the “improper transformation” and the “inappropriate adaptation” of places of worship. We must, according to Cardinal Re, remind everyone to “respect traces of religiosity and symbols of the history of Christianity handed down from generation to generation.”
Thus we cannot do whatever we want with sacred buildings, even after deconsecration, “when the external face is that of a church. If we are dealing with a shed temporarily used as a place for religious ceremonies, the day when it is taken down is fine,” says the cardinal.
“But if the building is a church, a certain care must be taken. There must be a sensitivity, cultural as well as religious, toward those buildings that are still identified as places of faith in the collective memory.”