Roman Catholics: Answer for Elephants

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Almost every city in Europe has its white elephant of a cathedral—decaying stone edifices with more maintenance problems than worshipers in the pews. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, Roman Catholic Bishop Martinus Jansen has come up with a direct, if drastic, solution for his cathedral problem: he has sold it to the wreckers.

The bishop had sound spiritual and temporal reasons for his move. For one thing, his 76-year-old cathedral in the heart of Rotterdam was badly in need of repairs. It had a regular congregation of only 300—and the church seated 1,100. On top of that, the bishop insisted, it was "a very ugly building." Last summer, Jansen auctioned off the cathedral for $1,400,000 to a real estate developer, who plans to put up a 14-story office building in its place. Demolition began in January, and the twin-spired edifice has now been half-destroyed by the wrecker's ball.

With the money from the sale, Bishop Jansen converted a nearby convent chapel into a church for the residents of his old cathedral parish, ordered the construction of two much-needed new churches in the Rotterdam suburbs, plus another in The Hague, which is part of his diocese. Although the developer who bought Rotterdam's Catholic cathedral has received a few letters warning that he will "be fried in hell," Rotterdammers have generally taken the razing in stride. "The bishop," says one Catholic merchant, "is a first-class businessman." A second Dutch prelate, Bishop Hubertus Ernst of Breda, is now planning to demolish his 19th century cathedral for similar reasons.