On certain Sunday mornings in America, you can still hear a church bell toll across an otherwise silent neighborhood. The sound is familiar, but the congregation it once summoned has vanished. Pews sit undisturbed, hymnals gather dust, and sanctuaries once filled with life now echo only with the footsteps of estate agents measuring out a future that will no longer be Christian. In much of the West, the bell remains — but its audience has gone. Nowhere is that shift clearer than in Buffalo, New York, where the Diocese sold the former St. Ann’s Church and Shrine — a Gothic landmark completed in 1886 — to Buffalo Crescent Holdings, a company associated with the Downtown Islamic Center. The purchase price was $250,000, far below the tens of millions required for structural repairs. There was no scandal — only a quiet transfer of a building one faith could no longer sustain to a community that could. Renovation has begun, with plans to establish the site as an Islamic center. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam) Across the United States, similar stories now surface with increasing frequency. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, the historic United Congregational Church — founded in the 17th century — sold its sanctuary to the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, which reopened the building as a mosque and community hub. When a mosque rises where a church once stood, it signals the retreat of one identity and the advance of another... In South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the former St. Adalbert’s Catholic Church and school was purchased by Masjid Al-Huda and now operates as an active mosque. In Bristol Township, Pennsylvania, the closed Immaculate Conception B.V.M. Catholic Church was acquired by the United American Muslim Society and is being redeveloped as Mevlana Camii. These examples sit atop an undeniable demographic reality: a nationally recognized Lifeway Research study found that 4,500 U.S. churches closed in 2019, while only 3,000 opened. Some... No hoodwinking or hornswoggling here. Support independent journalism and get unlimited access to quality commentary. Subscribe Already a subscriber? Login here