Sale of church to Muslims no big deal – US Catholic officials

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, New York has commented on the sale of a historic church to the local Muslim community, after a social media post about the deal triggered a deluge of outraged comments.

St. Ann’s Church was built in 1886. It was closed down in 2007, as there weren’t enough parishioners to sustain it, and sold to a holding company in 2022. Earlier this month, however, it was mentioned an example of dwindling Christianity in the country.

“Sold to the Islamic community for $250,000 who are converting the historic church into a mosque,” an account named ‘Father R. Vierling’ posted on X, with photos of the Gothic-style cathedral. The post was viewed 11 million times.

Some comments beneath the post were so furious that the original poster had to respond, urging people not to direct their anger against the Islamic community. He blamed the demise of the parish on “the changing demographics of the area and the inability to financially support the complex,” noting that this “scenario is being played out in once large, urban dioceses across the country.”

Financial concerns were indeed the reason for the sale, the Diocese of Buffalo told The Tablet, a Catholic outlet in New York City. Repairing the church would have cost over $30 million at the time, diocese spokesman Joe Martone said.

“It needed a tremendous amount of money in repairs,” Martone said. “The work that was needed was incredibly expensive and beyond the scope of the diocese.” 

The Diocese of Buffalo declared bankruptcy in 2020, under the burden of 900 allegations of sexual abuse involving clergy and other employees.

In November 2022, the church sold the shuttered St. Ann’s, along with a school and convent complex, to Buffalo Crescent Holdings. While local media reported that the company intended to convert the complex into a mosque, neither the Islamic Center nor the Buffalo Diocese said so at the time.

Moreover, Martone said the diocese had released the property to “profane use,” a term referring to closed churches no longer used as churches, allowing it to serve any purpose so long as it was not “sacrilegious, immoral, or scandalous.”

“We’ve had other properties that we’ve sold within the diocese that have been sold to other religious groups that have used them for their faith services, so as a general rule, the diocese does not have a problem with that,” he added.

Buffalo is a community of almost 280,000 people on the coast of Lake Erie, near the US-Canada border. Since 2000, it has seen an influx of immigrants from Yemen, Somalia, Bangladesh and Iraq.

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