Up to date, more than thirty churches are still operating in Morocco. The number seems chocking as it has been steadily declining for decades. In fact, many churches and cathedrals in the Kingdom have been transformed into cultural centers, hotels and mosques. Spanish news agency EFE tackled the issue, putting the blame on a regulatory vacuum. Indeed, Morocco has never set a framework for justice to protect sacred places. «The Catholic church had no legal status in Morocco, from the day it was restored by the Moroccan state until Pope John Paul II visited it in 1985. Thus, during these 29 years the church couldn't be considered a private property», explains the Rabat archbishop, Cristobal Lopez Romero. These sacred places, are now used as refugee offices, like that of Hassan in Rabat, or have been transformed into mosques, such as the one located in the Roches Noires district in Casablanca. The Spanish church in El Jadida built by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and has even been converted into a hotel. Now 30,000 people, mostly sub-Saharan immigrants, can pray in the thirty churches.
