It continues: “Our prayers and thoughts are with his family and the many people who were left speechless by his sudden death.” A prayer will be held for the deceased at 5:30 p.m. in Bonn Cathedral; on Sunday the faithful can gather in the crypt for a personal farewell at the coffin.
Blessings for Bonn
Child and youth pastoral care, altar server work and individual accompaniment as well as death and bereavement pastoral care were the focus of Wolfgang Picken’s pastoral work. With his appointment as pastor of the Basilica of St. Martin, Picken had resumed first communion preparation in the Münster parish and devoted himself to establishing family pastoral care and altar servers. As pastor of Bad Godesberg, he founded the “Walter-Möhren-Kindergarten of St. Georg” and the first inclusion kindergarten in the region in 2009. This was followed by the founding of the “Kindergarten Network Bad Godesberg”, the “Curative Education Advisory and Support Service” and the “Academy Bad Godesberg”.
In addition, Picken set spiritual accents in the Bonn Cathedral, for example with sermons during Lent and Advent as part of sermon series. He already maintained the tradition of such sermon series as pastor of Bad Godesberg. An outstanding spiritual event for Bad Godesberg was the “Bad Godesberg pilgrimage” that he founded, in which up to 1,500 believers took part every year. In addition, Picken offered pilgrimages and pilgrimages abroad as a pilgrim leader and spiritual companion.
For Picken, it was important to be involved as a dying and bereavement companion in the hospice movement. He was the author of the book “Saying Farewell to Life,” published in 2000. Picken completed further training to become a grief, loss and survivor companion. In 2001, Picken founded the first “integrated hospice” in geriatric care in Bergisch Gladbach Refrath, followed by two more in Bad Godesberg. The “Integrated Hospices” were awarded the “Altenheim Zukunftspreis 2009”. He made an “outpatient palliative service” possible for Bad Godesberg. In 2019 he gave the founding impetus for an “outpatient dementia care”. In 2005, Picken founded the “Rheinviertel Community Foundation”, which to this day provides hospice and end-of-life care, runs daycare centers, enables youth work and supports other social projects. She also devotes herself intensively to the topic of “inclusion”. The foundation has grown into a citizen-supported social enterprise. When he took up his post as city dean of Bonn, he resigned from the board and was appointed honorary chairman of the board of trustees for life. Since taking office as Münster pastor, he has been a board member of the “Münster Foundation”. On his initiative, the foundation, which was originally founded for the structural requirements of the Münster Church, is to expand its purposes to include social and pastoral tasks in the Münster community and city pastoral work.
Appointment of an integration officer
His concern for refugees and people with a migration background also attracted his attention. Picken was a member of the advisory board of the Otto Benecke Foundation. In 2018, he acted as an idea generator for the nationwide pilot project “Participation and Democratization” in refugee aid, in which federal and state ministries, the city of Bonn and the Otto Benecke Foundation are involved.
In 2019 he appointed an integration officer for the city deanery of Bonn. At the same time, he started planning a training program in developing countries, which would be carried out according to German and European standards and in German. Back in the fall of 2015, Picken, as pastor of Bad Godesberg, gave the impetus to found the “Round Table for Refugee Aid in Bad Godesberg” and moderated the associated network until his change in office.
What was important to Picken was direct help for those in need and those seeking advice. Since his appointment as city dean of Bonn, he has been chairman of the Caritarates of the city of Bonn. In this role, he was responsible for the work and further development of the Caritas association’s work in the city. It was his initiative that led to the planning of a Carita portal, which in the future will begin working as a low-threshold first point of contact for those seeking help and advice on the grounds of the Bonn Minster.
He already set similar accents as pastor of Bad Godesberg. For Epiphany 2016, Picken opened the “Soup Heaven” in downtown Godesberg, offering free lunch every working day. The founding of the “Social Pilot Point” in the center of the Bad Godesberg district was also his initiative. Picken was also a member of the “Round Table for Violence Prevention” in Bonn. It was launched by the mayor of Bonn on his initiative and is developing a city-wide prevention concept against violence. Picken’s initiative was a consequence of the violent death of Niklas P. in Bad Breisig (2016), whose family he accompanied as a pastor.
Promoting religious life was also important to Picken. As city dean, he visited all the religious communities in Bonn in his first weeks in office and founded a religious council for the city of Bonn. As pastor of Bad Godesberg, he previously initiated nine monastery branches in the pastoral care sector.
Responsible for the general renovation of the cathedral basilica
As pastor of the Bonn Minster, he was responsible for the general renovation of the Bonn Minster. The basilica reopened in October 2021 after being closed for four years. Shortly beforehand, the crypt and cloister of the Romanesque monastery complex were completed.
Picken was characterized by the development of new pastoral concepts and ideas with which the church can respond appropriately to changes. As city dean, he has moderated the “Pastoral Future Path” in the Bonn city deanery since 2019.
Teaching position at the University of Bonn
Wolfgang Picken began a teaching position at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Bonn in the summer semester of 2023. He has also been an Associate Fellow of CASSIS, Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies at the University of Bonn since the end of 2022. The theologian and doctor of political science focused his academic focus on the topics of “politics and religions”, “basic democratic values”, “functionality and future viability of civil society” and “party research”.
In the Archdiocese of Cologne he was a member of the conference of city and district deans, a member of the priests’ council and the diocesan pastoral council. In 2019, the Priests’ Council unanimously elected him as its delegate for the synodal path of the Catholic Church in Germany. He resigned from this position in 2023.
The Bonn city dean Wolfgang Picken, who is also known nationwide, is dead. This was announced by the Catholic city deanery of Bonn on
Saturday with. 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.