Closing of churches - Catholicism dying in Europe (including Malta)

The below is just a sample. The situation is much worse:

The Netherlands

In the Dutch province of Friesland, more than 250 of 720 existing churches have been transformed or closed. 

The Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam once was the Saint Ignatius Church.

The Church of St. Jacobus, one of the oldest of the city of Utrecht, was converted into a luxury residence. 

A library opened in a former Dominican church in Maastricht.

Belgium

In Mechelen, Flanders, in place of a famous church, a luxury hotel now stands. Catholic arches, columns and windows still soar between menus and tables for customers.

In Tournai, the Church of St. Margherita has been transformed into apartments.

Eight centuries after its founding, the Church of the Blessed Sacrament at Binche, a majestic building in the heart of a medieval town close to Brussels, was put on sale for the symbolic sum of one euro. 

The Church of St. Catherine, built in 1874, dominates the historic centre of Brussels, the only religious building created in the city at the end of Ancien Régime, and today one of the most protected in the EU's capital, especially after the terror attacks there in 2016. Brussels, however, wanted to convert the church into a fruit market. Only the mobilization of the faithful hindered the city's plan.

The Church of Saint-Hubert in Watermael-Boitsfort now accommodates apartments. 

In Malonne, the chapel of Piroy has been transformed into a restaurant. 

In Namur, the Saint-Jacques Church was transformed into a clothing store and the Church of Notre Dame, built in 1749 and deconsecrated in 2004, is now a "cultural space."

France 

Some years ago, Muslim French leader Dalil Boubakeur suggested turning empty churches into mosques. 

In the French region of Vierzon, the Church of Saint-Eloi has become a mosque. 

The diocese of Bourges had put the church on sale, and a Muslim organization made a most generous offer to buy the site. 

In the Quai Malakoff, in Nantes, the old Church of Saint Christopher became the Mosque of Forqane.

A few years ago, Niall Ferguson, the brilliant contemporary historian, wrote about Europe's future as "the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom." 

It is easy to find images of the decay of Europe's Christianity and the growth of Islam in the heart of the old continent. 

Every traveller in any modern European city can notice the new mosques being built alongside abandoned and secularized churches, some converted into museums.

Some food for thought

 

 

That the Church in Malta has - and continues to - hamper diffusion of Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite is demonstrated by statistics:

 

• In Malta and Gozo, which are two separate dioceses, there are a total of  78 parishes (63 in Malta and 15 in Gozo) and 6 national parishes. There is only one Tridentine Mass, once a week on Sunday evening, in the whole of this country, i.e. a mere 0.013% (Tridentine Mass / parish)!
• On the other hand, in France, where the Catholic Church in France is organised into 98 dioceses and 4300 parishes, there are 488 parishes that have regular Tridentine Masses, i.e. more than 10% of the total!
   
   

Remembering St. Pius V's Quo Primum

Philip Agius, Pro Tridentina (Malta) member, next to St. Pius V monument in Valletta.

Quo Primum is a papal bull decreed by Pope St. Pius V on 14 July, 1570, which set in stone for all time the exactness of the holy sacrifice of the Mass to be said in the mother tongue of the Church, i.e. Latin.

A papal bull is a solemn instrument that popes use for various questions such as doctrinal decisions, canonizations, disciplinary questions, jubilees and the like. Only occasionally have they been used for the liturgy.

Quo Primum is above all a legal document although it also contains some doctrinal elements. As such it is not intended to be definitive in the same way as a doctrinal definition would be and would not bind St. Pius V himself or future popes if they decided to further fine-tune the missal.

The saintly Pope's concern was to ensure as much unity as possible for the liturgy in a time when such unity was sorely needed. Even so, the same bull contains a clause exempting any Church which had its own ordo more than 200 years old. Many local Churches could have availed of this concession but most preferred to adopt the new missal for practical reasons. Some religious orders and some dioceses such as Lyon in France and Milan in Italy did opt to legitimately maintain their own rite.
 

A couple of years after publishing Quo Primum, St. Pius V added the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to the missal following the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. This slight change indicates that, except in matters of faith and morals, a pope's disciplinary decrees in matters such as the non-essential elements of liturgical rites are never "set in stone" and can be changed by a subsequent Supreme Pontiff whenever he believes that the duty of feeding Christ's flock requires it.

(Adapted from EWTN Q&A)