The Bonn city dean Wolfgang Picken, who was also known nationwide, is dead. The Catholic City Dean’s Office of Bonn announced this on Saturday. Picken, born in 1967, died on the same day “after a short but highly aggressive oncological illness,” it said. Picken was also a member of the nationwide synodal assembly on the future of the Catholic Church. However, he resigned from his mandate almost a year ago. At the time, he cited the reasons for this as the lack of openness and the unity with the universal church that had been too easily jeopardized.
“Our prayers and thoughts are with his family and with the many people who were left speechless by his sudden death,” said the city dean’s office. Out of consideration for the relatives, we were asked to refrain from making any further inquiries at this time. Prayers for Picken should be held in the Minster Basilica in Bonn late on Saturday afternoon. There will be an opportunity to say goodbye at the coffin from Sunday in the crypt of the basilica.
On Saturday, Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki expressed his condolences. The news of Pickens’ death filled him with “deep sadness and great dismay,” one says Statement from the archdiocese. “As a cathedral pastor, as the city dean of Bonn and as a priest and pastor, Wolfgang Picken was always a committed fighter for the faith and for the believers,” said Woelki. His thoughts are with the Pickens family and those people who are now mourning him. “My prayers go out to him and the people.”
Picken also expressed criticism of the KHKT
Picken was also one of four high-ranking priests in the Archdiocese of Cologne who welcomed criticism from university rectors of their own church university sponsored by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. “We in the Archdiocese of Cologne cannot add to the conflict over the ‘Woelki University’,” it said with regard to the Cologne University of Catholic Theology. Picken had also been involved in the renovation of the cathedral basilica in recent years.
Picken studied Catholic theology, philosophy and political and social sciences in Bonn, Rome and Cologne. He completed further studies as a seminarian in the Roman “Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum”. In 1993 Cardinal Joachim Meisner ordained him a priest. In 2019 he was introduced to the office of city dean of Bonn and pastor of the St. Martin Cathedral Basilica in Bonn. In the same year he received the Federal Cross of Merit. (cbr/KNA)
01/27/24, 5:50 p.m.: Added condolences from Cardinal Woelki