Episcopal Academy of the Diocese of Aachen

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The Episcopal Academy of the Diocese of Aachen is an institution for Catholic adult education in the Aachen diocese , which is funded under the Further Education Act of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is part of the twenty-four German Catholic academies . The center of the educational work is an own house with a hotel in the extended rooms of the seminary in Aachen near the Aachen main station . The academy is certified by the quality seal association for further education.

history

Shortly before the end of his term of office, the Aachen Bishop Johannes Joseph van der Velden was able to lay the foundation for a post-war start of Catholic educational work in the diocese with the inauguration of the August Pieper House, which was built according to plans by cathedral builder Felix Kreusch Aachen place. In this way it became the legacy of the People's Association for Catholic Germany , which fell after the war and whose former association directors were both August Pieper and Bishop Van der Velden. The focus here was initially and for a long time on questions of Catholic social teaching , following the name giver of the house August Pieper. Since then, the academy has also been a member of the working group of Catholic-social educational institutions, which was founded almost at the same time . In the course of time, topics of spiritual and (inter) cultural as well as interreligious education were taken up, whereby the relevant foresight of Bishop Klaus Hemmerle was certainly beneficial. Since the late 1980s, influenced by the then director Hans Hermann Henrix , the Jewish-Christian dialogue has also been a focus . By 2005, four of the former five academy buildings (the "Brunnenhof" in Mönchengladbach , the "Papst-Johannes-Haus" in Krefeld , the "Haus Maria Rast" near Euskirchen and the " Wildenburg " in the Eifel ) had to be as Branch offices of the academy will be closed. At the beginning of 2019, after well-documented new research on August Pieper's relationship to National Socialism, the name August Pieper House was given up for the Aachen conference venue.

Present and challenges

Currently, the Academy, under the direction of its director Christiane Bongartz, is an institution that is approaching new tasks. Among other things, these are challenges in the area of ​​the crisis of tradition of Christian faith and occidental culture as well as the question of which communication channels can be used to achieve such a goal. Exhibitions, theater performances and diverse collaborations are also intended to appeal to new target groups.

literature

  • Aachen contributions to pastoral and educational issues. Series of publications of the Episcopal Academy and the main department “ Pastoral / School / Education” of the Diocese of Aachen. Founded by Philipp Boonen. Edited by Harald Hüller and Christiane Bongartz. Aachen: Einhard-Verlag 1967ff.
  • Oliver M. Schütz, Encounter of Church and World , The Foundation of Catholic Academies in the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1975, Paderborn a. a .: Schöningh 2004, pp. 153–173 (The August Pieper House in Aachen, Episcopal Academy of the Diocese of Aachen).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Some of the information in this article comes from the academy's homepage and page [1] , but has been fundamentally reformulated and expanded here.
  2. ↑ Werner Neuhaus: August Pieper and National Socialism. About the susceptibility of right-wing Catholicism to folk-nationalist thinking. BoD, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3-7460-1141-7
  3. ↑ https://www.bistum-aachen.de/aktuell/nachrichten/nachricht/Bistum-Aachen-gibt-Namen-fuer-August-Pieper-Haus-auf/