According to Bernd Kemmerling, it is not yet clear what will happen with the premises, which were only renovated six years ago. The Poppelsdorf priest from the Saint Sebastian parish, who is currently acting city dean, insisted on see off the staff personally. As reported, the previous city dean, Wilfried Schumacher, had to step down as part of the financial irregularities involving the Bonn cathedral.

The cathedral parish Saint Martin had spend approximately two million Euro from the property assets to finance loss-making facilities. The shop had struggled with economical problems for a while already too.

The also loss-making cathedral carré will also close by the end of the year. „We don’t understand why we have to give up already“, said Thomas Minten, manager of the cathedral shop. „We would have liked to still get the Christmas business.“

While Minten starts a new job in Munich in the next few days, the future for his colleague Andrea Weffer remains unclear. „I am unemployed from January on“, said the bookseller, who ran the organisation of the shop and who has to manage the closing down now.

Joachim Gerhardt, priest and press officer of the protestant church in Bonn, also visited. „It would be nice if we found a possibility to revive the cathedral shop as an ecumenical institution“, he suggested and received approval for this idea. Kemmerling reported that the diocese has asked the main catholic bodies and all pastoral offices to describe how they imagine the profile of the new city dean. „I hope that we can hire somebody for this position quite soon“, said Kemmerling.

(Original text: Lisa Inhoffen, Translation: Mareike Graepel)