[apelapan]

Catholics abandon and sell church buildings all the time. Once you've removed a small handful of sacred items and done the de-consecration-ritual, it is "just a building" to them too.

There are vast numbers of repurposed churches in Catholic countries. Just walk the streets in an Italian city.

I'm not familiar with the specifics for catholics, but it is conceptually not too different from how protestants do it.

With the caveat, best repeated in every post under this article, that of course very strong sentimental feelings can be attached to a church building. You could put a religious dimension on the morality of hurting peoples feelings by destroying or changing a beautiful thing I guess. But, it is not the house itself that is holy in a holy house.

[PaulRobinson]

The piece you're missing is de-consecration. A consecrated space is holy whether the people are in it or not, within the Catholic tradition. Yes, you can deconsecrate it, and then it's just a building. However a loaded tabernacle makes it a holy space in the eyes of Catholics even if it's an empty space. It is conceptually very different to Methodism: the entire point of Methodism is to abandon such mysteries.

[apelapan]

I think we agree, because I did mention the de-consecration as a crucial step.

The Lutheran churches where I'm from do a similar thing.