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Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

spiegel.de

21–30 of 171 posts

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#21
post #3

As membership declines, just wondering what happens to all the cash the Churches are sitting on, from property, to art, to chuch tax collections. Going to be interesting to see what the next (younger) gen of church leaders do with it...maybe they need an innovation center to modernize the useful aspects of religion.

"from property"

In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and have to be preserved. There is one I can see from my window that has been under renovation for 20-something years; every couple of years there is a 'competition' to find someone with the best plan of what to do with it, and they never find anyone because a) it's a monument so you're very restricted in what modifications you can do with it; and b) it's very expensive to maintain (let alone renovate).

So yeah, whatever money they have remaining in art etc has been dumped into pretty much worthless property over the last decades. A few of the remaining nuns around my corner distribute a door to door church flyer once every few months (blissfully ignoring any 'no advertising' stickers on any mailbox, bless their hearts), and they report on the financial state of the parish in it every once in a while - judging from how excited they sound when they've collected a few 100 at a service that drew a large crowd, it's not all glitter and gold in the church (at the lower levels at least). Oh and another church around the corner (I have literally a dozen within a 1km radius from my house) sells christmas trees from their parking lot every year to keep the heating on - not exactly a sign of opulence either.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#22

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

We could try science / engineering monasteries as described by Neal Stephenson in Anathem?

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#23

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

They just accept the changes without adapting? Why?

From a religious point of view, 'adapting' the core idea of what you believe to be Gods will might be seen as far worse than just quietly dying out with dignity.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#24

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

[deleted]

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#25

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

> I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore.

Living a monastic life has never been appealing to the broad population. But to say that an ascetic life devoted to introspection doesn't 'make sense' is misguided.

The modern world in predominately a sedentary lifestyle spent between a cube and a couch, interspersed with frenzies of gluttony, consumption and mindless distraction to stave off feeling of emptiness.

Nothing could make less sense.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#26

I would love to see old monasteries turned into various kinds of retreats. The idea of spending a week or a month with no electronics, all my meals prepared, and quiet time to just read, study and think sounds fantastic.

This is already possible, I'm told that many monasteries accept visitors, for a week or two, who are basically expected to be quiet and polite.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#27

I would love to see old monasteries turned into various kinds of retreats. The idea of spending a week or a month with no electronics, all my meals prepared, and quiet time to just read, study and think sounds fantastic.

I once visited as a tourist the monastery at Montserrat near Barcelona. I was quite looking forward to rustic home-made bread, cheese, and wine, but unfortunately they'd outsourced the cafe to a secular organization.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#28

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

> The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up with changes?

Because the core idea is dumb, the change is that more people with more access to knowledge about the world realize that, and monasteries are adapting by dying out.

Monasteries are basically communes. Great for people that have nothing, but more and more people actually have something even if it's "just" a smartphone.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#29
post #21
post #3

As membership declines, just wondering what happens to all the cash the Churches are sitting on, from property, to art, to chuch tax collections. Going to be interesting to see what the next (younger) gen of church leaders do with it...maybe they need an innovation center to modernize the useful aspects of religion.

"from property" In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and ha…

In the meantime, Poland is not only building lots of new churches, it even builds new cathedrals adorned in gold[0]. Even the little town I'm from(only 20k population) has 3 churches, and they are all full of gold and it's common knowledge that the local priests are most likely one of the wealthiest people around.

[0]This was only finished in 2004, and is the most disgustingly oppulent building I have ever seen:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_Naj%C5%9Bwi%C4%99tsze...

You'd think all of this would turn people away from the church, but it doesn't seem that way - each church usually has to hold 4-5 masses every Sunday and for every one the church is full to the brim, with people standing outside because there's no more room in the church itself.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#30

I would love to see old monasteries turned into various kinds of retreats. The idea of spending a week or a month with no electronics, all my meals prepared, and quiet time to just read, study and think sounds fantastic.

Don't retreats like that already exist. Why does it have to be an old monastery. And anyway I thought the whole point of a monastery was that everybody helped out with the cooking, gardening, chores etc. not that you had servants waiting on you.
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