La Basilica Di San Pietro

So this is one of the vanity project Microsoft undertakes using the vast amounts of money it makes off of proprietary software?

Microsoft was bummed that they couldn't acquire it so they recreated it in 3D.

I sometimes wonder why they don't just sell the whole thing to a real estate developer or something.

If inornate churches that look more like strip malls and expo centers are so much better for the laity then imagine how much more good it would do for the top brass, relieving them of the burden of having to look at all that sacred art all day long. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

In fairness, the Catholic church is not the sect building strip mall churches.

Why would they build? They're losing members year over year in droves. My parents are at that unfortunate age where a lot of friends and family are starting to die, and one constant refrain in the area is "when can the funeral service be? will a priest even be available at the church that day?" My grandmother died recently and they had to wait for a day for a priest to be available at that particular church because he holds Mass at three different physical locations in the area due to a lack of faithful. And this is Southeastern Louisiana, which is about as Catholic as it gets.

While the decline is not universal, shrinking parishes is itself a reason to sell older and more ornate churches and either build smaller strip mall ones, or merging several parishes into big expo center ones.

Of course it only adds to the decline when the hierarchy builds as if going to Mass is no different from a trip to the mall or seeing a show.

There’s also the hypothesis that if the Church gets prestigious awards for their avant-garde architecture people will finally start liking the Church again.