Baltimore: Church Attendance Falls From 250,000 to 2,000

Archbishop William Lori, 72, of Baltimore, Maryland, is reducing the number of parishes in the city of Baltimore from 61 to 21 and the number of churches from 59 to 26, reports BaltimoreSun.com (14 April).

It has not yet been decided what will happen to the closed churches. Last autumn, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy because of the anticipated costs of compensating hundreds of people who claim to be victims of homosexual abuse after a new law lifted the statute of limitations, allowing for random accusations that no one can prove.

But a spokesman said the drop was unrelated to the bankruptcy case and had been decided two years ago.

The city of Baltimore was once home to 250,000 Catholics. A steady decline began in the 1980s and has essentially fallen off a cliff in the last decade.

By 2019, there were fewer than 5,000 on the city's church rolls, and the closure of Corona reduced that number even further. Only about 2,000 people now regularly attend churches [in the city of Baltimore].

Since 1980, the population of Baltimore has shrunk by 17%. The white population is down from 43.9% in 1980 to 28% in 2020.

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