Vatican puts up "for sale" church signs

by Our Rome Correspondent THE Vatican has revealed that it is considering selling off 9,000 de-consecrated churches to prevent their falling into min.
"For Sale" signs are expected to appear on the churches once the Vatican has finished the job of cataloguing its assets, a project begun in 1987. More than 95.000 churches have so far been registered in Italy alone. Buyers will be subject to a series of "rigid conditions" on the use of the properties.
An estimated ten per cent of these buildings, mainly the deconsecrated churches of parishes which were closed down or amalgamated, will be sold on condition that they are used for "cultural" purposes.
The Vatican's Consultative Group for Cultural Heritage, which would co-ordinate the sale, said the Church would seek to prevent the misuse of deconsecrated churches.
The Vatican admitted last week that it had not stepped in on time to stop some ecclesiastical buildings in the region of Venice from being used as ''boxing clubs".
At the same time, the Italian state is reported to be ready to cede to the Vatican about 3,000 Church properties expropriated under the 1984 Church-State cohabitation pact, the Concordat.
The majority of the properties are churches and museums in their own right with works of art by masters like Raphael and Caravaggio.
The move has provoked a protest in the Italian Parliament where MPs described the plan as "a haemorrhage of works of are already exacerbated by the elimination of European