Montreal’s Catholic Church Sets Up Its Own Real Estate Company to Decide What Happens to Its Buildings

• The Archdiocese of Montreal launched a non-profit real estate corporation in 2025
• It will guide parishes on redevelopment, rezoning, rentals and sales
• Affordable housing partnerships are among the options being explored
• It is led by Stefano Marrone, the archdiocese’s real estate head since 2021

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal has set up a dedicated non-profit company to manage its church properties, The Catholic Register reported on 1 April 2025. The Corporation Immobilière Catholique Romaine de Montréal will help parishes decide what to do with buildings as attendance and donations decline.

The corporation’s job is to match parish real estate with community needs. That could mean redevelopment, sales or simply finding new income. Its chief executive, Stefano Marrone, who has nearly 20 years of development experience and has worked for the archdiocese since 2021, gave one modest example: “Some of them are just looking for creative ways to, for example, change their zoning for the basement so they can bring in a different kind of tenant.” Affordable housing partnerships are also on the table.

In Quebec, parishes are organised as fabriques, legal entities that can own several properties of very different heritage value. The archdiocese covers 162 parishes, 25 missions and five sanctuaries, according to its own announcement, which described the move as the first time a Catholic archdiocese had created a non-profit subsidiary of this kind to steer real estate towards community benefit.

Archbishop Christian Lépine said churches “have been at the heart of communities” and that reimagining how their spaces can serve the common good reflects the Church’s commitment. Marrone said the aim is for each parish to approach the future “with confidence and peace of mind.”

The move reflects a reality facing many older denominations in Canada: large buildings, shrinking congregations and rising maintenance bills. Rather than leaving each parish to negotiate alone with developers and city hall, the archdiocese is pooling expertise in one body.

Jamaican churches, and diaspora congregations in Canadian cities, can take something from this model. Few local churches have the in-house skill to assess zoning, heritage rules or development offers. A shared property office, whether at denominational level or across several congregations, can help ensure buildings and land are used well, rented on fair terms and never sold in haste.

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