Overview
- An appellate court in Buenos Aires revoked a lower‑court injunction earlier this month, removing a judicial block that had prevented administrative progress on the LDS Church’s proposed 36–38 metre temple on the block beside the Santa Catalina complex.
- The Santa Catalina church and monastery have been closed temporarily after the site’s rector reported new interior cracks, collapsed masonry and fallen light fixtures that he attributes to recent municipal pedestrian works on calle Viamonte.
- The Buenos Aires city government says manual methods, not heavy excavation, were used near the convent, has suspended the Viamonte works pending independent structural studies, and will send engineers to inspect the building.
- Three members of the Comisión Nacional de Monumentos, de Lugares y de Bienes Históricos resigned in protest of the court decision, and the commission plans a new site visit and urgent meetings to consider the resignations and the damage claims.
- Santa Catalina is a Monumento Histórico Nacional inside a protected area; past court rulings and a 2025 commission dictamen warned tall construction would threaten the ensemble, and the dispute now mixes legal, technical and political battles with possible new challenges ahead.