as the RCC. Typically, for protestant churches, each church is owned by its congregation. If that congregation slips in membership, there may simply not be enough people to support the costs of keeping that church open. That's especially true of that particular church needs substantial renovations due to the age of its building or other factors.
Mega churches often don't have that disadvantage. Often, they are located in former commercial properties which have lots of space, but not much character. Sometimes, they're owned by the congregation, and sometimes the church is in leased property. Instead of a shrinking congregation, many of those, through more attractive services, etc., are growing in size.
But, the RCC owns its buildings collectively. They belong to the diocese, in most cases, or the archdiocese. When revenues drop from a parish, for whatever reason, there is a financial imbalance, and churches with larger congregations find themselves paying for churches with shrinking congregations, but increasing costs. So, we have parish mergers or just shutdowns of parish churches.
The central organization structure makes such shrinking more obvious and affects the entire organization, rather than just one, independently owned church.
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