Planned school closings in the Archdiocese continue to cause fierce debate among Catholics and beyond. Archdiocese does not want to transfer schools threatened with closure to Fundación Arenales, which is supposed to be close to Opus Dei
Hamburg (kath.net/rn) In the archdiocese of Hamburg, the planned school closings among the Catholics and beyond continue to cause heated debate. This is reported by FAZ. After the diocese had determined that its own school association barely formed pension provisions and the schools were not operating while covering costs, the emergency brake was pulled and eight school closures decided upon. Because of the over-indebtedness of the budget in the amount of 83 million euros in 2017, the debt would rise in the next five years, according to the diocese to 350 million euros. The nerves in the archdiocese of Hamburg are likely to have been pushed to the edge by the diocesan administration. The FAZ quotes the Hamburg Archbishop Heße as follows: If he had known what to expect in Hamburg, "then they could have done the shit alone.”
It is also interesting that the Archdiocese of Hamburg offered schools that were to be closed to establish new sponsorship associations. A director then founded an Edith Stein School, which since January 1, 2019, a daughter of Diakoniewerk New Bank Ramp, a non-profit Christian carrier from the region. Another school has already taken similar steps.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however, six out of a total of 21 archdiocesan schools are still to be closed, and two more are subject to a moratorium of one year.
An explicitly Catholic school would like to avoid the Archdiocese of Hamburg, however. An offer of school takeover by a Spanish foundation called Fundación Arenales, which according to the FAZ is close to Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenate, was rejected. The Fundacion already runs a kindergarten in Munich. The Archdiocese said that the Foundation does not want to transfer any schools.
Incidentally, the number of students at the Catholic schools in Hamburg has fallen from more than 10,000, and since 2013 it is presently around 8,500.
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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