The Ecclesial Reuse of Catholic Heritage: The 2018 Guidelines of the Pontifical Council for Culture

Since the early 2000s, the phenomenon of the redundancy of church buildings has manifested itself with particular intensity in the secularized West: it has challenged the ecclesiastical hierarchies and the communities that are most exposed and affected. To ensure that the issue is not sidestepped, the Vatican agency responsible for culture and cultural heritage - the Pontifical Council for Culture – promoted in 2018 two international enquiries (one ecclesial and one academic), culminating in the international conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University (November 29th and 30th, 2018), which led to the drafting of Guidelines, approved by the delegates of the Episcopal Conferences concerned, and issued a few weeks later. The 2018 Guidelines were the first statements by the Vatican on the matter, but why were they necessary and how are we to interpret them? This chapter attempts to answer these questions in two directions. First, there will be a brief historical contextualisation of the document. It offers a brief exploration of the theological culture of architecture, on the relationship between ecclesiastical institutions and preservation practices, on the relationship between canonical regulations and the social dynamics of ecclesial heritagization. Second, the institutional process that led to the drafting of the document is explained, with a presentation of its structure. Particular attention is paid to the themes of resilience, sustainability and planning, which are the mainstays of future local experiments. Overall, this chapter presents an exploration of the guidance offered by the Vatican for Catholics grappling with the growing challenge of managing their churches both as sites of heritage and as homes for living communities.