50 years Keb Ingolstadt: Education for everyone despite declining number of participants!

50 years Keb Ingolstadt: Education for everyone despite declining number of participants!

Ingolstadt, Deutschland - Catholic adult education (KEB) in Ingolstadt celebrates 50 years of success! Founded on the initiative of Dr. Siegfried Hofmann, the city's former cultural officer, has developed the KEB into a central educational institution. Alfred Schickel and Ingrid Bauer, the first lecturers, started in the living room with educational offers. The first statutes were decided on March 14, 1974, and the parishes soon followed. A year later, a circle of young mothers was created, which is still organizing monthly events today. Since then, the KEB Ingolstadt has carried out thousands of events, but the number of participants has declined in recent years.

The reasons for the decline are clear: "The declining importance of religion can also be felt in the resonance of participants," says Rudi Schmidt, Managing Director of KEB. While theological topics were initially focused, people are more interested in practical topics such as energy saving or retirement provision. Top -class speakers such as Benedictine Father Anselm Grün and the Munich pastor Rainer Maria Schießler still attract many visitors. The roots of the KEB in the diocese of Eichstätt go back to the diocesamic synod 1952, which laid the foundation for adult education.

a look into the past

The 1952 diocesis synod was a turning point for Catholic adult education. Bertram Blum, a pioneer in this area, describes the beginnings in his book when the church began to consider laypeople as active participants and not just as objects of pastoral care. This view has shaped Catholic education sustainably and led to the foundation of the first full -time positions in the diocese. In recent decades, the KEB has continued to develop and founded numerous institutions that provide a wide range of educational offers today.

Currently there are eleven institutions of Catholic adult education in the diocese of Eichstätt, which last year offered around 2,000 events visited by 51,000 people. Dr. Ludwig Brandl, director of the diocesan education work, emphasizes that education is not a luxury, but an essential task of the Church. Catholic adult education remains an indispensable part of the commitment of the church in society and is particularly important in times when traditional ways of pastoral care are no longer sufficient to reach people.