By Vatican News staff writer

In a statement issued at 12 noon on Friday, the Apostolic Nunciature in Poland announced that Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz, one of the oldest cardinals in the country, has been subjected to penal measures on account of abuse of minors. The Archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Wrocław has been accused of harassment, homosexual acts, and collaboration with the security service of the time.

Penalties imposed

The statement issued by the Nunciature says that “following the investigation into the accusations made against Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz, and after analysing other accusations concerning the Cardinal’s past, the Holy See has taken the following disciplinary decisions against him: [the Cardinal] is forbidden from participating in any public celebration or meeting; forbidden from using episcopal insignia; and prohibited from the funeral service and burial in the cathedral.”

Additionally Cardinal Gulbinowicz will be required to pay “an adequate some of money in the form of a donation for the activities of the St Joseph Foundation, established by the Polish Bishops’ Conference for victims of sexual abuse, their psychological assistance, prevention [of abuse] and the education of those responsible for the protection of minors.”

By Stefan J. Bos

German police said the men targeted Friday were not considered suspects, but they contacted the attacker, and two met him in person.

Several suspects are still held in Austria, and officials are following up leads in Switzerland too.

The gunman went on a rampage in Vienna on Monday night, opening fire in six places in the center. Two women and two men were killed, and 23 were wounded in Monday’s terror attack, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility. 

Police shot the gunman dead. They found that the attacker named as Kujtim Fejzulai had both Austrian and Macedonian citizenship. 

The shootings started around Vienna’s main synagogue, recalled Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister. “I heard the shootings on the street. In the beginning, I thought it was fireworks, which can happen at this time of year,” he said. “But then I saw an attacker with a gun was shooting at the guests in the nearby bars and restaurants in the area.”

Austria’s Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said authorities are trying to track down the 20-year-old killer’s contacts. He claimed that they were dealing with “a violent criminal who was clearly intensely active in the Islamist political network, a sympathizer who took on their ideology.”

Slovakia warning

But the minister has admitted that a warning from Slovakia last summer about the attacker was not followed up. In Slovakia, police revealed they had tipped off Austrian authorities about “suspects from Austria” trying to buy ammunition in July.

He reportedly failed to buy bullets as the gunman had no license. 

It has also emerged he was released early from a jail sentence last December for trying to join jihadists in Syria.

The shootings have underscored broader fears of Islamic terror attacks in Europe following the recent stabbing of three people in a church in the French city of Nice and the beheading of a teacher in a Paris suburb.

By Vatican News staff writer

According to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), South Sudan and Yemen, two of the world’s biggest ongoing food insecurity emergencies, are being joined by Nigeria’s North East and Burkina Faso in West Africa’s Sahel region, with conditions edging closer to famine.

The report, ‘FAO-WFP early warning analysis of acute food insecurity hotspots’, published on Friday, outlines a toxic combination of conflict, economic decline, climate extremes and the COVID-19 pandemic, that is driving millions further into the emergency phase of food insecurity.

People in the four hotspots of highest concern are already experiencing a critical hunger situation, with the report warning that escalations in conflict, as well as reductions in humanitarian access, risk the onset of famine.

Acute hunger rising in 16 other countries

The FAO-WFP report says these four countries are far from being the only red flag on a world map that shows acute food insecurity levels reaching new highs globally, driven by a combination of factors. Another 16 countries are at high risk of rising levels of acute hunger.

The report calls for urgent action to avert a major emergency, or series of emergencies, in the next 3 to 6 months, WFP has said in a statement.

Urgent action today

“This report is a clear call to urgent action”, said Dominique Burgeon, FAO’s Director of Emergencies and Resilience. He expressed deep concern about the combined impact of several crises which, he said, “are eroding people’s ability to produce and access food, leaving them more and more at risk of the most extreme hunger”.

Burgeon stressed the need to access these populations “to ensure they have food and the means to produce food and improve their livelihoods to prevent a worst-case scenario”.

Catastrophe, or famine, is the most severe of five phases used by the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system to chart escalating degrees of food insecurity.

Margot van der Velden, WFP’s Director of Emergencies, said, “We are at a catastrophic turning point”.  “When we declare a famine it means many lives have already been lost. If we wait to find that out for sure, people are already dead”.

Another Somalia of 2017?

Comparing the situation in the critical countries to that of Somalia in 2011 when 260,000 people died, she said, “We cannot let this happen again. “We have a stark choice — urgent action today, or unconscionable loss of life tomorrow.”

The FAO-WFP report points to a total of 20 countries and contexts that are at “further risk of deterioration of acute food insecurity”.  The key drivers of hunger include expansion and intensification of violence, economic crises exacerbated by COVID-19 socioeconomic impact, weather extremes, transboundary threats such as desert locusts and a lack of humanitarian access.  (Source: FAO-WFP)