Sigmund Kripp

Sigmund Kripp (* 1928 in Absam ) is an Austrian social worker .

Life

Sigmund Kripp attended the Franciscan high school in Bolzano and graduated from Frascati near Rome . In 1951 he joined the Jesuits and began his novitiate at Schloss Kollegg in Sankt Andrä in Carinthia. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Innsbruck and graduated from Weston College in Massachusetts with a master's degree in theology. He became an educator in the Kalksburg College in Vienna, in the School for Juvenile Delinquents in Lincolnale New York, in a youth center in Santa Clara California and in El Paso New Mexico.

In 1959 he took over the development and management of the Marian Congregation for High School Youth in Innsbruck . It was there in 1964 that he was the builder of the John F. Kennedy House , a youth center that had 1500 members in the best of times. Kripp renounced “ pedagogy from above” as an instrument of adaptation to prevailing norms. On the other hand, he aimed at “pedagogy without instruction”, which promoted experience, critical reflection and discourse as well as consistent democratic self-administration. The young people designed the magazine “We discuss” themselves, where they openly addressed their problems and published unadorned discussions with their opinions. With his first book Farewell to Tomorrow , he got into a final confrontation with Bishop Paulus Rusch , who, in consultation with the Superior General of the Society of Jesus Pedro Arrupe, achieved his dismissal as educator in Innsbruck.

As a result, Kripp went to Munich , where initially a posting as a missionary to Kathmandu was prepared. It did not come to that, with the approval of his superiors , Kripp went to the city of Fellbach in Baden-Württemberg via a Die Zeit announcement to build and manage a youth center there. He published his experiences there with the book Smiles in the Shade. In 1980 he received a professorship for social education at the Esslingen University of Applied Sciences .

When he dared to submit proposals for the democratization of the Jesuit order, he was expelled from the Societas Jesu in 1984 against his will. To do this, he published with Als Jesuit failed.

In 1985 he went to Nicaragua as political advisor to the Ministry of Social Affairs. Fernando Cardenal was the Minister of Social Affairs at the time , in an official role as a trainer for educators and social workers. After his retirement he worked as a lecturer on questions of development policy at the University of Klagenfurt .

In Nicaragua, he founded a holiday resort in a very structurally weak, rural area on the west coast near the border with Costa Rica. The resort bears the name of the beach, Playa el Coco. The employees there are all from the surrounding area, for their families there are sometimes accommodations in the resort, as well as a small school (lower level). The aim of the project is to found a tourism company that is run by locals and is self-sustaining.

Awards

• Austrian builder award 1967 , as builder of the Kennedy leisure center in Innsbruck with the architect Josef Lackner
• 1998 Honorary doctorate from the University of Klagenfurt

Publications

• Farewell to tomorrow. From life in a youth center. (John F. Kennedy House Innsbruck) With an afterword by Karl Rahner , Patmos-Verlag , Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 978-3-491-00412-2 .
• Smile in the shade. The adventures of a youth home. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 978-3-491-77433-9 .
• Grin in the sun. Photos and design by Kurt Mimmler, Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 978-3-491-77400-1 .
• Hear what the boys are saying. Encounters in the youth center. Kösel-Verlag , Munich 1984, ISBN 978-3-466-30267-3 .
• Failed as a Jesuit. Junius, Vienna 1986, ISBN 978-3-900370-92-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dietmar Larcher : LAUDATIO FOR SIGMUND KRIPP University of Klagenfurt, accessed on January 21, 2018