decaying empty UK churches with no real relevance to most people anymore thus.... Shame really some of these old churches are just falling to bits as I guess is the faith... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47326993
The atheist in me is delighted to see this anachronistic religion dying, on the other hand I am aware of the elderly especially in rural communities that find much solace and companionship in the church.
The decline in attendance is occurring everywhere. In Europe the church has been subsidized by the government for centuries with mandatory church tax.
There are still some real Christians in the U.K. but the numbers at this point are probably around 10-12% of the population, and furthermore the ones left are more in the rural areas now away from the impressive old churches in the hearts of cities.
I'm non-religious, and while I have no love for the religion itself, it annoys me that the secular or non-religious world is failing to address these kinds of issues. On some level, it can be justified as "there are people who will take that role, and if churches would go away, they would find some other way of doing it", but to me that's only partially satisfying. I consider religion to have failed to answer some important questions, but it feels tenuous to replace it if the replacement also fails to answer some questions.
I have become increasingly less militant in my atheism as the years have gone on. I think that the vacuum left by the gentle type of Anglicanism I have seen in the UK, the church fetes, coffee mornings and the more important food banks and soup kitchens are a real asset to our society. As you say there is very little offered in the secular and non religious communities to compare. I know people who at the moment only get a proper meal at the local church, I never thought the day would come when I would be donating food and clothes to my local church! I blame much of it on the political system, but I do think that itself is influenced by the "me, me ,me " attitude so many have today. Is that a result of the loss of influence of the church, I do not know?
The 'church' is a smokescreen for paedophiles to conceal their perversion. The ceremony in the Vatican the other day was nothing more than a PR exercise - it will make no difference whatsoever. In fact who's the say the pope isn't one of them? He's obviously known about it for decades but only now doing anything, and that only amounts to paying lip-service to it.