AMERICAN FREEDOM by BARBARA

Banks are foreclosing on America's churches in record numbers...

Reverend Gregory G. Groover is pictured sits for a portrait inside the Charles St. AME Church in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts March 7, 2012. The church is being threatened with foreclosure and a March 22 auction by its lender One United bank, America's largest black-owned bank. The bank says the church, which was founded in 1818 and played a major role in the anti-slavery movement, has defaulted on a $1.1 million balloon loan that came due in December 2011. Groover said the church did not default by missing monthly payments, but is in trouble because the loan ballooned.Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder

as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data.

The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.

Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans, with 90 percent of those sales coming after a lender-triggered foreclosure, according to the real estate information company CoStar Group.

In 2011, 138 churches were sold by banks, an annual record, with no sign that these religious foreclosures are abating, according to CoStar. That compares to just 24 sales in 2008 and only a handful in the decade before.

The church foreclosures have hit all denominations across America, black and white, but with small to medium size houses of worship the worst. Most of these institutions have ended up being purchased by other churches.

The highest percentage have occurred in some of the states hardest hit by the home foreclosure crisis: California, Georgia, Florida and Michigan. Reuters