This Wall Street Journal article points to another casualty in the economic slump: churches. Many are having to close their doors because they can’t make their mortgage payments:
Since 2008, nearly 200 religious facilities have been foreclosed on by banks, up from eight during the previous two years and virtually none in the decade before that, according to real-estate services firm CoStar Group, Inc. Analysts and bankers say hundreds of additional churches face financial struggles so severe they could face foreclosure or bankruptcy in the near future.
This is happening in every denomination. In Catholic dioceses, however, the issue isn’t simply the mortgages, since property is often owned outright by the Church, but the significant decrease in church attendance. Fewer attendees means less money in the collection basket. Parishes are being consolidated, and this appears to be just the beginning.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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