More than a thousand people died gruesome deaths in cannibalistic rituals according to traces uncovered at an ancient site in Germany, a report in the scientific review Antiquity revealed this week. ...The victims at the Rhineland-Palatinate site were adults, children and even babies.
...An examination of the bones suggested that the victims had been cut up in much the same way animals were when they were butchered at this time in history, it added.
The carnage dated back to the Neolithic era - between 5,300 and 4,950 BC, a period "marked by war, sacrificial practices and every other form of social violence."
...Since the team also found pottery identified as being from several thousand miles away, they concluded that the site had been a key political and religious centre.
It also suggested that the find could be evidence of a deep crisis at the end of one prehistoric period. "The existence of slaughters, of possible sacrificial practices, of wars and every other form of social violence fits well with the hypothesis of a millenarist crisis at the end of a cycle," the study concluded.
read more @ the local
2. Vatican 'ashamed' at handling of abuse claims
The papal nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, has said there was no intention on the part of the Vatican not to co-operate with the commission investigating clerical child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.
..."We feel ashamed about what happened, I feel really I must express again my shock, my dismay," he said. "I understand the anger of the people and the sufferings of those who have been abused. We totally condemn this."
The report revealed a catalogue of cover-ups and inaction by senior Church figures in face of serious allegations of abuse. It also revealed Vatican officials refused to deal directly with the commission's investigators, suggesting they should use official diplomatic channels instead.
read more @ irish times3. Hamburg pastor probed for child porn
Prosecutors in Hamburg are investigating a Protestant pastor for suspicion of possessing child pornography and possibly abusing children, daily Die Welt reported on Tuesday.
The authorities stumbled upon the 47-year-old man from Alt-Rahlstedt while breaking up a child porn ring and they have already searched his apartment. After confiscating his computer they found a considerable amount of questionable material, according to the spokesman of the city’s state prosecutor Wilhelm Möllers.
He is also thought to have sent pictures of children at a church choir practice to another man with contacts to the pedophilia scene.
Perhaps even more worrying, the paper reported that the pastor is also being investigated for sexually abusing children. The local church has recently informed 200 parents of the case and children have already been questioned.
“The pastor has been suspended from his duties because he is suspected of committing a crime,” Thomas Kärst, a spokesman for the Northern Elbe Protestant-Lutheran Church, told Die Welt.
The pastor, who spent more than 10 years in Rahlstedt, reportedly has not had contact with his congregation for several months after church officials said he was suffering from “burnout syndrome.”
source: the local
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