Church building maintenance is a huge portion of most dioceses' expenses, and with dwindling parishes and lack of funds, they simply can't keep all of them open. Some of these beautiful buildings cost more in maintenance each year than it would be to build a newer, more modern one that was sized correctly for the current number of parishioners.
Much of Europe has already gone through this; many (but not all) of the churches you can visit in Europe have significant state support because they're historical and touristic.
Sometimes the diocese gets enough people interested in "saving" an old church that they can cover the maintenance for another year, decade, etc, but we're talking millions of dollars.
The Catholic Church appears as one big institution run by an absolute monarch, but it is much more like a fiefdom run by local bishops with a king who can if he really works at it, depose one. And the parishes under the bishops are similarly somewhat independent. The canon laws covering it can be seen here: https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=1254-1310 (note that the bishop "taxes" the parishes to support the diocesan activities, this is usually done as an "annual Catholic appeal" which transfers money from the rich parishes to the poor parishes, usually the ones with schools). A parish financial committee is established by https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=537 but the pastor has some pretty powerful leeway in executing his duty as he sees fit.
Even many Catholics don't realize that their favorite "old parish church" is often kept afloat by donations from one or two old parishioners. The old couple handing out donuts after Mass may be donating a million a year to keep the parish school running, and you may only ever find out if you dig into the non-profit filings. As an example, a local (well regarded) private Catholic school K-12 has $4m in tuition income, and $2m in donations, with the rest from "other" which includes selling tickets to games, merchandise, etc. Of that $7m, almost $4m goes to salaries, and about $1m to building and maintenance.
Find your local parish and search for "annual report" and you can see more.
Side note: I see from the canonlaw.ninja site that not even the "universal" church can't help but get into the copyright fight also. ;D wink
"Canon 1. This document is temporarily unavailable due to a cease and desist from the Canon Law Society of America. We are hoping for a solution in the near future.
cf. 1983 CLC 1"
Our local parish had bad damage from a wind storm during Holy Week and has been closed ever since. The school building, which currently hosts a non-parochial school (where my kids go), is being shut down by the archdiocese at the end of the school year because the maintenance costs have grown excessive (it was a bit of a problem for the school because they only learned this in November and had assumed that they would have the lease renewed for at least one year at the end of this school year). While the pastor of the parish (which is a merger of this parish and another one about a mile away) has promised that the church will be reopened, I’m skeptical. This parish was the most moribund of the four parishes in the suburb where I live and sentiment aside (it’s where my wife and I were married and our kids baptized), it’s hard to justify keeping this parish alive (worth noting is that it’s the only one of the four that no longer had its parish school open—when they shut it down, they had around 50 students total enrolled in the school).
Much of Europe has already gone through this; many (but not all) of the churches you can visit in Europe have significant state support because they're historical and touristic.
Sometimes the diocese gets enough people interested in "saving" an old church that they can cover the maintenance for another year, decade, etc, but we're talking millions of dollars.
Rome supplies some funds, but not much and they're almost always used for missionary work or charity, etc. Peter's Pence is one example: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/obolo_s...
The Catholic Church appears as one big institution run by an absolute monarch, but it is much more like a fiefdom run by local bishops with a king who can if he really works at it, depose one. And the parishes under the bishops are similarly somewhat independent. The canon laws covering it can be seen here: https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=1254-1310 (note that the bishop "taxes" the parishes to support the diocesan activities, this is usually done as an "annual Catholic appeal" which transfers money from the rich parishes to the poor parishes, usually the ones with schools). A parish financial committee is established by https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=537 but the pastor has some pretty powerful leeway in executing his duty as he sees fit.
Even many Catholics don't realize that their favorite "old parish church" is often kept afloat by donations from one or two old parishioners. The old couple handing out donuts after Mass may be donating a million a year to keep the parish school running, and you may only ever find out if you dig into the non-profit filings. As an example, a local (well regarded) private Catholic school K-12 has $4m in tuition income, and $2m in donations, with the rest from "other" which includes selling tickets to games, merchandise, etc. Of that $7m, almost $4m goes to salaries, and about $1m to building and maintenance.
Find your local parish and search for "annual report" and you can see more.