There had been criticism of the oversized advertising. For some people in Bonn, commercial advertising is not compatible with the cathedral. Among other things, a married couple wrote a letter of complaint to Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki.

However, if you think that this is the reason why the poster was removed from the cathedral, you would be wrong. "The rental period of the poster had expired," a staff member of the city deanery explained to the GA. The Bonn leisure store Knauber had booked the prominent advertising space in the city centre for one month. A new design will now be hung on the scaffolding in the next few days. The office of the City Deanery did not indicate what this would be, nor who the client would be.

According to GA information, the design is currently waiting to be approved at the Archdiocese in Cologne, which endorsed the generation of revenue through the advertisements. As part of the contract with the commissioned Cologne advertising agency, the advertising designs need the express agreement of the cathedral parish and the archdiocese, in order to exclude problematic designs from the outset.

According to a press release from the cathedral parish, it emerges that this agreement is dependent on the revenue from the advertisement. Ulatimately, the parish is “after the mismanagement of the past years and the loss of all financial reserves, in a desperate economic situation.” Furthermore, the complex restoration of Bonn cathedral requires substantial sums of money.

(Original text; Maximilian Mühlens, translation John Chandler)