AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

ALL 30 are dead, probably by suicide.

All 30 were abused by clergy or other religious officials in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese.

In some cases the link between those two factors appears clear and direct. In others the picture is complicated by time or circumstances.

The time seems right, now that a royal commission is inquiring into sexual abuse in religious institutions throughout Australia, to put the question of these troubling deaths – and many others like them – on the table for closer examination.

Some observers will ask what can be achieved by unearthing these sad stories of suicide tragedies. After all, in many cases it may now be virtually impossible to tease apart the various potential contributing factors and reach any sort of conclusion about the relative contribution of sexual abuse.

But as a series of articles in today’s Newcastle Herald suggest, there are…