Bonifatiuswerk

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Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics
logo
legal form registered association
founding 1849
Seat Paderborn
purpose Catholic aid organization
Chair Georg Austen
Managing directors Ingo Imenkämper
sales 17,347,258 euros (2018)
Employees 45 (2018)
Members 27 (2018)
Website www.bonifatiuswerk.de

The Bonifatiuswerk der deutschen Katholiken e. V. is a Catholic aid organization for the support of pastoral care in the diaspora regions in Germany , Northern Europe and the Baltic States . The donation relief organization was commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference . The Bonifatiuswerk aims to support the missionary mandate of the Catholic Church in those places where Catholics live in a predominantly non-religious and increasingly unbelieving environment. The Bonifatiuswerk was founded in 1849 during the third Catholic day in Regensburg.

task

The association supports Catholic Christians who live their faith in a minority situation with donations. He is active in Germany - primarily in eastern and northern Germany -, northern Europe and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia . In these countries and regions, the proportion of Catholics in the total population is between 0.3 and 12 percent. As an "aid organization for the faith", it also promotes projects for the transmission of faith and missionary initiatives in Catholic regions in Germany.

The association collects donations and makes them available to the parishes and Catholic institutions as "help for self-help" for specific objects and projects. The charity knows four funding channels. With its construction aid, the Bonifatiuswerk supports the construction and renovation of churches and community centers, youth and education centers, Catholic schools and kindergartens in the diaspora. With its child and youth welfare service, the Bonifatiuswerk supports projects for the transmission of faith and for charitable projects in the diaspora. With its traffic aid, the Bonifatiuswerk supports the motorization of large territorial parishes in the diaspora. With its faith aid, the Bonifatiuswerk promotes temporary staff positions with a missionary character in the diaspora as well as missionary initiatives in all German dioceses.

In 2018, the Bonifatiuswerk funded a total of 1,254 projects in the diaspora of Germany, Northern Europe and the Baltic States with 15.4 million euros. Significant projects in recent years are the construction of the new Catholic Episcopal Church of St. Olav in Trondheim , Norway , the construction of the Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary for the Chaldean community in Södertälje , the new building of the Catholic Provostry St. Trinity in Leipzig and the new building and the Expansion of the Marienheide monastery in Waldkappel . The Religious Children's Weeks (RKW) are funded by the Bonifatiuswerk annually with around 420,000 euros and the Catholic kindergartens in East Germany with around 600,000 euros. Furthermore, the Bonifatiuswerk supports the outpatient children's hospice services in Berlin and Halle an der Saale, soup kitchens and children's houses and annually promotes up to 45 vehicles, the so-called BONI buses , through which religious life in large parishes is to be made possible.

Around 600 BONI buses are currently on the road in Germany.
Around 600 BONI buses are currently on the road in Germany.

The work of the Bonifatiuswerk is based on three pillars of income (figures come from the financial report 2018), namely on income from collections (4.9 million euros), donations / contributions / legacies and donations (5.7 million euros) and from funds from Diaspora commissioner (5.5 million euros). On the so-called Diaspora Sunday, the third Sunday in November, Catholic Christians have been gathering nationwide in Sunday worship services for the projects of the Bonifatiuswerk since 1966. For First Communion and Confirmation , first communion children and company applicants collect for the projects of child and youth welfare in the Bonifatiuswerk. In the Archdiocese of Hamburg and in the Diocese of Hildesheim , the Catholic Christians also hold a collection in favor of traffic assistance in the Bonifatiuswerk. With the Bonifatius Foundation Center, the Bonifatiuswerk opens up a path for all those who want to sustainably promote the work of the Bonifatiuswerk. With endowments, endowment funds, trust foundations and foundations with legal capacity, sponsors can support the diaspora aid in the long term from the first euro.

The Santa Claus campaign " Santa Claus-free zone " was launched in 2002 by the Bonifatiuswerk. It helps to put St. Nicholas back in the foreground in society and to counteract confusion with the popular fictional character of Santa Claus .

history

The former post office in Paderborn, the seat of the Bonifatiuswerk.

The association was founded on October 4, 1849 as the Bonifatius Association in Regensburg on one of the predecessors of today's Catholic Days. The Catholic aid organization bears the name of St. Boniface , who dedicated his life to the preaching of the faith and is known as the "Apostle of the Germans". The first president was Joseph Theodor zu Stolberg-Stolberg from the diocese of Paderborn . In 1852 the association received papal recognition and in 1853 it was introduced in Austria . In 1885 the Bonifatius collecting society was founded, from which the diaspora children's aid in the Bonifatiuswerk developed. In 1923 an offshoot was founded in the USA . In the years between 1924 and 1934 alone, 40 diaspora churches were established each year with the help of the Bonifatius Association. During National Socialism , the Bonifatius Association was initially able to continue to work to a limited extent until it finally had to stop working.

After the war, the Bonifatius Association, which has been called the Bonifatiuswerk since 1968, started the "New Church Building" program. By 1974 it supported 3,000 new churches for the numerous Catholic Christians who poured into the diaspora regions in western Germany due to flight and displacement. In 1949 the traffic aid, the Diaspora-MIVA, founded by Father Paul Schulte in 1927 , was incorporated into the Bonifatiuswerk.

During the years of the division of Germany, the Bonifatiuswerk supported the Catholic Christians in the GDR in various ways . Between 1949 and 1989, the Bonifatiuswerk was able to pass on more than 232 million euros to the Catholic Church in the GDR for church buildings, vehicles, priest training, child and youth welfare, pastoral staff and pastoral assistance despite adverse political circumstances.

The Bonifatiuswerk has been helping Catholic Christians in Norway , Sweden , Denmark , Finland and Iceland since 1974 . The Catholic Church in these countries is growing rapidly. In 1974 only a few hundred Catholics lived in Iceland, today there are over 10,000. In Norway, the number of registered Catholics rose from around 10,000 in 1974 to over 110,000 today. The Bonifatiuswerk significantly supports the construction and purchase of the now necessary worship rooms.

The Bonifatiuswerk has been helping Catholic Christians in the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia since 1995. After the Soviet dictatorship, the Catholic Church is building a new church infrastructure there. At the same time, the very small Catholic community in Estonia - along with East Germany and the Czech Republic, the region in the world most strongly influenced by atheism - is facing special challenges.

Today the association, as an "aid organization for faith", focuses on newly emerging diaspora situations in a society in Germany and Europe that is more and more disinterested in Christianity. In ecumenical solidarity, it supports future-oriented initiatives of a new missionary pastoral.

In 2016 and 2017, the Bonifatiuswerk went through a self-critical process and analyzed, optimized and aligned all internal and external structures and processes to current and future framework conditions. As a consequence of this optimization process, a detailed location assessment was adopted, in which the order, content of the work and goals were revised. On the other hand, an amendment to the statutes was decided. Since then, the Bonifatiuswerk has been managed by an executive board and supervised by the Bonifatiusrat as a supervisory body and generally accompanied by content. In addition, the Bonifatiuswerk was recognized as a canonical association and as such was given ecclesiastical legal personality by the German Bishops' Conference.

On May 17, 2018, the Bonifatiuswerk was awarded the donation certificate from the German Donation Council. The aid organization was certified by independent auditors that the donations and grants were used in a targeted, economical and economical manner.

present

The association is an aid organization run by lay Catholics. As an association, the Bonifatiuswerk is currently based on more than 6,000 regular members and over 100,000 friends and supporters throughout Germany, who are grouped together in the Diocesan Bonifatiuswerke. The coordinating headquarters of the plant is based in Paderborn .

The general assembly meets every three years. It includes all German diocesan bishops , the representatives of the diocesan Bonifatiuswerke on behalf of the members of the Bonifatiuswerk in the dioceses, and the members of the general board. The General Assembly elects the members of the General Board.

Monsignor Georg Austen (left) and President Heinz Paus.

The General Board decides on the allocation of donations and collections. It consists of twelve honorary members. The chairman of the general board is the president of the Bonifatiuswerk. Heinz Paus has held the office of President since 2013. Before him, Georg Freiherr von und zu Brenken had been President of the Bonifatiuswerk since 1998. The managing director is the general secretary. In agreement with the German Bishops' Conference, he is appointed by the General Board for a period of six years. Monsignor Georg Austen has been General Secretary and General Manager of the Bonifatiuswerk since 2008 . Austen runs the aid organization together with a business graduate and tax advisor Ingo Imenkämper, who took over the position of managing director of the Bonifatiuswerk on January 1, 2020.

Actions

  • The Bonifatiuswerk has been supporting all those responsible in the parishes across Germany in preparing for First Communion and Confirmation since 1918 . To this end, an advisory council for religious education develops a new annual theme with numerous accompanying materials for catechesis in the parishes.
  • The nationwide Santa Claus campaign under the title " Santa Claus Free Zone " was launched in 2002 and is intended to help bring St. Nicholas back to the fore in society and to counteract any confusion with the popular fictional character Santa Claus.
  • The Bonifatiuswerk launched the welcome initiative in 2015. The aim of the initiative is to welcome newcomers to the parishes. As an expression of the welcoming culture, the Bonifatiuswerk offers a welcome bag for new parishioners and is increasingly promoting projects to support refugees.
  • "The Bible Campaign" was launched in 2015 with the aim of covering the need for missing Bibles in schools and thus introducing young people and children to the book of books. With this campaign, the Bonifatiuswerk has so far been able to provide a total of 24,000 Bibles for schools in the north and east German dioceses with a total value of around 400,000 euros.
  • The other actions and initiatives of the Bonifatiuswerk include the life nodes. These include the school initiative from 2012, as well as the newborn baby bag, the initiative "Carrying on the Faith", launched in 2009, and the "Church in Small" campaign, which covers the elementary foundations of the Catholic faith (rituals, sacraments, church year, prayers, church holidays, etc. .) in the form of mini-notebooks in German communities.
  • In order to protect and maintain customs and Christian values, the Bonifatiuswerk relaunched the pages www.nikolaus-von-myra.de and www.heilige.de at the end of 2015. At www.nikolaus-von-myra.de you can find all information about St. Nicholas. With www.heilige.de the Bonifatiuswerk is helping to bring the name day back to mind.
  • Since July 2011, the Bonifatiuswerk has also been sending committed young people with the "Bonifatius Internship Program" to Northern Europe, Estonia and Latvia in order to get to know church life in the diaspora directly there. The "Bonifatius Internship Program" is a cooperation program between the Bonifatiuswerk der deutschen Katholiken e. V., the Newman Institute in Uppsala / Sweden, a university for theology, philosophy and cultural studies and the cooperating dioceses and institutions.
  • Against the background that more and more animal species are threatened with extinction around the world, the Bonifatiuswerk has been organizing regular days of action under the theme "Animals of the Bible" in German zoos and animal parks since 2010 . The aim is to make children aware of the small and large wonders of nature, to introduce them to the contents of the Bible in an interesting way and to sensitize them to the issues of species protection and the preservation of creation. Action days have already taken place in Hamburg, Cologne, Osnabrück, Karlsruhe, Dortmund and Augsburg.
  • Since September 2019, the Bonifatiuswerk has been looking for and promoting  innovative missionary projects throughout Germany with the newly developed funding program "Open spaces of faith" and thus face the current social and church changes and challenges. The aim is to find innovative projects that bring people's worlds together with the gospel. [1]

Publications

From 1946 to 2020, the Bonifatiuswerk published the theological quarterly Lebendigeszeugnis . Before that, the Akademische Bonifatius-Korrespondenz (ABK) had been published since 1884 , initially with the title notation Akademische Bonifatius-Correspondenz .

See also

literature

  • Günter Riße , Clemens Kathke (ed.): Diaspora: Testimony from Christians for Christians. 150 years of the Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics . Bonifatius, Paderborn 1999. ISBN 3-89710-079-7 .
  • The Boniface Society. Its history, its work and its field of work. 1849-1899. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the association, Bonifatius, Paderborn 1899 ( digitized ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Board of Directors. In: bonifatiuswerk.de. Retrieved April 9, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Construction aid .
  3. ↑ Child and youth welfare .
  4. ↑ Traffic assistance .
  5. ^ Bonifatiuswerk: Faith Help. In: Bonifatiuswerk. Bonifatiuswerk, December 17, 2019, accessed on December 17, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Patrick Kleibold: Diaspora year booklet + financial report. In: Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics. Bonifatiuswerk der German Catholics, June 18, 2019, accessed on December 17, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Patrick Klei Bold: New Episcopal Church consecrated in Trondheim, Norway. In: Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics. Bonifatiuswerk der German Catholics, accessed on November 19, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Katrin Sijbom: Virgin Mary Church in Södertälje consecrated. In: Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics. Bonifatiuswerk der German Catholics, December 8, 2017, accessed on December 17, 2019 .
  9. ^ Bonifatiuswerk: Verkehrshilfe. In: Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics. Bonifatiuswerk der German Catholics, accessed on December 17, 2019 ( December 17, 2019 ).
  10. ↑ Patrick Klei Bold: Annual Report (Annual Report). In: Bonifatiuswerk of the German Catholics. Bonifatiuswerk der German Catholics, December 17, 2019, accessed on December 17, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Milestones in a 170-year history . In: Bonifatiusblatt , vol. 160 (2019), issue 3, pp. 15–16, here p. 15.
  12. ↑ Bonifatiuswerk optimizes internal structures and processes . bonifatiuswerk.de. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  13. ↑ Excellent addresses . westfalen-blatt.de. May 20, 2019. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  14. ↑ Transparency. January 13, 2020, accessed February 5, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Santa Claus-free zone .
  16. ↑ The welcome initiative. Retrieved December 23, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Bible Campaign. October 29, 2019, accessed December 17, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Nicholas. Retrieved December 17, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Heilige.de. Retrieved December 17, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Internship in the north .
  21. ↑ 2,500 first communion children at the “Animals of the Bible” day of action at Karlsruhe Zoo. October 29, 2019, accessed February 5, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Press release of the Bonifatiuswerk: After 74 years, the traditional theological journal “Lebendigeszeugnis” is discontinued. , March 24, 2020, accessed on March 27, 2020.
  23. ↑ Christopher Dowe: Also educated citizen . Catholic students and academics in the German Empire (= critical studies in historical science, vol. 171). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-35152-6 , p. 325.