Pope Francis: “Don’t Be Anxious About Closing Churches”

The fact that many churches are closed down should be welcomed in the Church "not with anxiety" but as a "sign of the times" that invites us to "reflection" and "requires us to adapt", Pope Francis told a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University (November 29) in a written message.

It is unclear though what the scope of such a "reflexion" would be.

Francis writes that the churches were necessary "until a few years ago" but are no longer "due to a lack of faithful and clergy".

He suggests that the churches may also be closed because of a different distribution of the population between cities and rural areas. This theory would imply that somewhere else there would be a big need to built new churches. But this is not the case.

There is little doubt that the present downfall of the Catholic Church is the main reason for the closing of the churches. Francis does not mention it with one word.

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