Foreclosing on Faith: America's Church Closing Crisis (Documentary)

Released in 2017, Foreclosing on Faith documents dramatic struggles that were then taking place in Cleveland, Boston, and New York which pitted faithful Catholics against bishops over church closures.

But the battles didn't end there.

Since 2000, the number of parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese of New York has decreased from 412 to 287 as a result of parish mergers, especially under the Orwellian-styled “Making All Things New” program launched in 2014. The faithful were told that parish mergers were required because of falling Mass attendance and a lack of priests. Parish mergers have led to the closing of churches, rectories, and schools, and the sale of property—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Parishioners have been uprooted and dispersed; generational ties have been severed and communities torn apart; parents have been deprived of the opportunity to send their children to Catholic schools. And the closings, sales, and demolitions continue.

Your church could be next.

Although the Archdiocese has in the past repeatedly denied that parish mergers and the selling of church property had anything do with the clergy sex abuse crisis, in a letter to the faithful on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception last December, Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote of “a series of very difficult financial decisions, including laying off staff and reducing our operating budget by 10%” as well as “working to finalize the sale of significant real estate assets, including the…former archdiocesan headquarters on First Avenue in Manhattan," so that "funds...can be set aside to provide compensation to survivors of sexual abuse.”

Join us as we bring attention to this crisis that has left Catholics feeling betrayed by the men appointed to be their shepherds and the stewards of the Church’s property—property that is the legacy of generations of Catholics who came before us.

We’ll watch Foreclosing on Faith and we’ll hear from the film’s co-producer and co-director, Viktoria Somogyi. We’ll also hear from Brody Hale, a lawyer who has for more than a decade made it his personal mission to help Catholics fighting to keep their churches from being shuttered, sold, and demolished or put to profane use.

There will be a panel discussion and a question-answer opportunity.

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Our Speakers:

Co-producer and -director of , Viktoria Somogyi is a Hungarian journalist and economist based in Rome, Italy. For more than twenty years, she has served as an editor for the Hungarian program of Vatican Radio. She has also worked extensively as a freelance Vatican and Rome correspondent for numerous international publications, magazines, radio stations, and online news outlets, and has contributed to an American Catholic monthly.

In Rome, Viktoria founded and led the Hungarian edition of H2Onews, a multimedia news service now known as Aleteia. In 2015, she co-authored her first book, published by the Vatican Publishing House (LEV); the volume was selected for the Frankfurt Book Fair the same year. In 2017, she completed her first documentary examining church closings in the United States.

A native of Massachusetts, Brody Hale has a private law practice with a focus on nonprofit organizations, social entrepreneurship, and conservation. He holds a BA from Tufts University, a JD from Boston College Law School, and an MPP from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

An expert in Canon Law, Brody has for over a decade provided pro bono assistance to groups of Catholics fighting to prevent their churches from being closed by dioceses. He is currently working on behalf of 21 different groups around the country whose churches are threatened with closure.

Brody serves as a member of the board of directors of the St. Joseph Church Preservation Society (Cabery, IL) and the St. Michael Church Preservation Society (Atlantic City, NJ). He is a co-founder of Save Rome of the West. His work to preserve historic Roman Catholic churches has been featured in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, the Chicago Sun Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Worcester Telegram, the Fall River Herald, and the National Catholic Register.

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SAVE MOST HOLY REDEEMER is a group of parishioners and friends of Most Holy Redeemer Church on 3rd Street between Avenues A and B in the East Village of Manhattan. In August of 2025, we were told that our beautiful, 174-year old church was being closed. With the guidance of our lawyer, Brody Hale, we have petitioned Rome for redress. We are a small but dedicated group of people who are volunteering our time to save our church. For more information about Most Holy Redeemer Church and to sign our open letter to the cardinal, click here.

This screening event is free, but if you would like to make a donation to help us and other groups of Catholics who are fighting to keep our churches open, you can donate via check to Save Rome of the West on the evening of the event or by clicking the link above. The website offers information and resources to help you keep your church open!

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