Mechelen is one the larger cities in Belgium at a little over a quarter of a million inhabitants. Currently it has 23 (Catholic) churches. However, later this month, four of those will be permanently close. Lack of priests, lack of sheeple and the cost of maintenance have convinced the diocese to close these plus a fifth one. There's still urgent maintenance work ongoing in that one, basically to keep the whole damn thing from collapsing.
Last year something similar happened in Lier (smaller city, 45K people) and then there was some grumbling about the churches being converted to other uses ... notably, in one case, converting it into a mosque.
In this case, the diocese has yet to actually decide to sell them off. But here, people are actually calling for them to be converted to secular uses. Or, for the ugly ones to be simply torn down.
Now Lier is a bit more conservative (or should I say 'parochial') than Mechelen, still, I do see this as progress ... and this in just one year.
I SO hope Belgium adopts the German system of religious taxing. I wonder what percentage would still officially remain Catholic ... 25%? 20%? Much less than the 50% that's being claimed today, at any rate.
