be eligible to participate in a conclave to select John Paul's successor. With the correction, it was seen that he was past his 80th birthday and ineligible. Gulbinowicz told the Catholic Information Agency (Poland) that many of his peers employed this strategy and that after the war no one thought it necessary to restore his true birthdate to his documents. He said that his superiors had known the truth from the time he entered the seminary and that John Paul had known from before he became Pope. The correct birth date was printed in the Pontifical Yearbook presented to John Paul on 31 January 2005. He was the author of a number of works in the new area of moral and doctrinal theology and on the formation of the clergy. Sexual abuse allegations On 6 November 2020, the Holy See's Nuncio to Poland announced that following a Vatican investigation regarding sex abuse allegations against Gulbinowicz, Gulbinowicz was now "barred from any kind of celebration or public meeting and from using his episcopal insignia, and is deprived of the right to a cathedral funeral and burial." He was ordered to pay "an appropriate sum" to his alleged victims. Death Gulbinowicz died on 16 November 2020 at 10:40am, just 10 days after the ruling against him was given, after having fallen unconscious in hospital. The cardinal was admitted to hospital in Wrocław on 10 November, just four days following the ruling. He died due to respiratory and circulatory failure after having suffered from acute pneumonia. His remains were cremated and the ashes interred on 23 November in secrecy at his family's tomb at Olsztyn, where his parents were interred. Notes References External links |- Archbishops of Wrocław Bishops of Białystok 21st-century Polish cardinals 1923 births 2020 deaths People from Vilnius Cardinals created by Pope John Paul II Recipients of the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals in Poland 20th-century Polish cardinals Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)