Plans drawn up by the Archdiocese of Hamburg to close eight of its 21 schools have met stiff resistance from affected families. More than 3,500 parents and families of children at Catholic schools in Hamburg marched through the inner city on 24 February carrying protest banners and ringing small bells.
“Those who close Catholic schools today will be holding sermons to empty pews tomorrow”, the chairwoman of the German Catholic Parents’ Association (KED), Marie-Theres Kastner said at the final rally in front of the town hall.
The march was the latest in a wave of protests since the Archdiocese of Hamburg announced the planned closures in December last year. On 11 February an online petition against the closures was started and has been signed by 16,000 people to date. It will run until the beginning of March and will then be sent to Pope Francis. It calls the decision to close the schools a “knee-jerk reaction” made above the heads of the faithful. It asks the Pope to mediate and “to help us make our voice heard”. It also criticises the lack of help from other German dioceses.
While almost all political and secular organisations had adopted the principle of subsidiarity, “this principle seems to have been forgotten by the German Church despite the fact that the (German) Catholic Church is by far the richest Church in the world”. The Hamburg archdiocese is a young and relatively poor archdiocese. It was closed after the Reformation and not re-established until 1994. Hamburg, which used to be a Protestant heartland, is now largely secular.
Last year the archdiocese had to take over 21 schools when their trust dissolved. Unlike some of the older German dioceses, many of which are exceedingly wealthy, it lacks assets to fall back on. According to the professional service firm Ernst & Young, the archdiocese has debts of 79m euros (£69.3m) which could go up to 353m euros (£310m) by 2021 if countermeasures are not taken.
PICTURE: Children at a school in Hamburg present an advent wreath ©PA
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