- Pope Leo defends faith in public life
- Historic Queens church sold as congregations merge
- Barbados urges churches to tap state fund
- Kingston covenant bars churches, chapels and schools
Kingston, Jamaica, 3 October 2026. It was a week in which the church made news for its buildings as much as its beliefs. In Paris, the Pope argued for religion’s place in public life. In New York, a century old congregation sold its building to secure its future. In the Caribbean, governments weighed how closely to work with churches, and in Kingston, an old clause on a land title reminded residents that churches have not always been welcome neighbours. Here is what happened, and why it matters to Jamaica.
Global: Paris, Canterbury and the cost of old buildings
Pope Leo XIV spent four days in France, visiting Paris, Lourdes and Metz. At the Élysée Palace he argued that authentic secularity “consists not in excluding religion from the public sphere” but in dialogue between state and religious institutions. The President of France replied that French secularism is “in no way the negation of religion.” The numbers behind the visit were striking in a country often described as post Christian. More than 13,200 adults were baptised in France this year, up 28 per cent on the previous year, and 42 per cent of them were aged 18 to 25. Hundreds of thousands attended the open air Mass in Paris.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, made her first visit to the United States since becoming the first woman to lead the Church of England. She addressed the Episcopal Church’s bishops in Texas, then met the Secretary General of the United Nations and hosted a roundtable on protecting healthcare in conflict zones, arguing that faith groups “are trusted by their communities.”
The story with the clearest property lesson came from Jamaica, Queens, the New York neighbourhood that shares our island’s name. St Stephen’s Episcopal Church, a historically Black parish founded in 1902, has merged with a nearby congregation in Hollis. The diocese is selling its 0.38 acre corner lot, zoned for commercial and multifamily development, for US$11.75 million, with the proceeds going to the merged parish. The building may be demolished, though its stained glass will be kept. The priest leading the merged church said what excited him was “what becomes possible when we no longer have to devote so much energy and resources to maintaining aging buildings.”
In the United States, church property also sat at the heart of two Catholic bankruptcy cases. In Vermont, the Diocese of Burlington asked to abandon its bankruptcy after rejecting a US$29 million settlement proposal, with a dispute over more than US$400 million in assets held in parish trusts. In Baltimore, a key hearing was delayed to November to allow more negotiation.
In England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded £3.1 million to Kendal Parish Church for work centred on its fifteenth century tower, a reminder of the public money that heritage churches increasingly require.
Regional: grants, a death and rising seas
In Barbados, the Minister responsible for the third sector urged faith leaders to apply to a government grant facility for faith based organisations. Ten organisations have already received funding, mostly for youth programmes. He rejected suggestions that the scheme was designed to control churches, saying: “That is not the case.” It comes weeks after Barbados moved to acquire church land in St Philip for housing and Anglican trustees announced plans for a medical centre with patient housing on church land.
The region also mourned Archbishop Robert Rivas, the Trinidad born retired Catholic Archbishop of Castries, who died on 27 September aged 80. He was the first Bishop of Kingstown in St Vincent and the Grenadines and served the church across the Eastern Caribbean for more than three decades.
At the United Nations, the Vatican’s Secretary of State called for a “culture of care” for small island states and low lying coastal communities facing rising seas, including access to funding and technology for adaptation. For Caribbean countries, where coastal towns, homes and churches sit within reach of storm surge, the appeal is far from abstract.
Local: a bill, a covenant and a bishop on sentencing
At home, the Opposition urged the Government to consult churches before tabling new legislation on nonprofit organisations, warning that provisions on tithes and offerings could expose church leaders to criminal liability. The Gleaner, in an editorial, called for a white paper and public hearings before the bill goes further.
In Kingston 6, residents are threatening legal action to stop a preparatory school opening on Tucker Avenue. The land’s restrictive covenant states that “no shop, church, chapel, school or like building shall be erected” on the property. The school’s founder has invested J$78 million, while all 43 homeowners who responded to an informal survey opposed the plan, citing traffic and noise. Such covenants are common on older residential titles across the Corporate Area, and they shape where churches, schools and businesses can locate.
The president of the Jamaica Evangelical Alliance, Bishop Dr Alvin Bailey, backed lawyers protesting mandatory minimum sentences under the Firearms Act. “This is not about being soft on crime,” he said. “It is about fairness in sentencing.” Two clergymen also filed for judicial review of the central bank’s plan to phase out cheques, with a hearing set for 7 October.
Elsewhere, the former religious liberty director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica, Nigel Coke, will speak at an international law and religion symposium in Utah from 4 to 6 October, the only Caribbean presenter. In Kingston, the Trench Town Psalms evening of gospel music and poetry takes place on 4 October.
The thread running through it all
Read together, these stories describe a church negotiating its place in a changing world. In Europe and North America, congregations are discovering that their buildings can be both a burden and an asset, and that a well located lot can fund a ministry for decades. In the Caribbean, governments are deciding whether to fund churches, regulate them more tightly, or take their land for housing. In Jamaica, versions of all three questions are now being asked.
For Jamaican congregations, the lesson from Queens is worth considering. Church buildings sit on some of the most valuable and best located land in many towns. Knowing what that land is worth, and what it could do, is no longer a distraction from ministry. It may be part of it.
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