The real tragedy surrounding a suicide crisis that has devastated a remote Manitoba community is that it represents just the latest instalment in a Canadian saga that shows no sign of a final chapter.

Living alongside Canada's First Nations people is a ministry of highs and heartaches for Archbishop Murray Chatlain.

And the heartache comes to the forefront at times like now, highlighted by a suicide crisis that has struck the First Nations’ community of Cross Lake, Man.

ROME - Australian Cardinal George Pell promised to work with a group of abuse survivors to help prevent suicide among victims and support healing and protection programs.

Recently I read, in succession, three books on suicide, each written by a mother who lost one of her children to suicide. All three books are powerful, mature, not given to false sentiment and worth reading: Lois Severson, author of Healing the Wound from my Daughter’s Suicide: Grief Translated into Words, lost her daughter, Patty, to suicide; Gloria Hutchinson, who authored Damage Done, Suicide of an Only Son, lost her son, David, to suicide; and Marjorie Antus, who wrote My Daughter, Her Suicide, and God: A Memoir of Hope, lost her daughter, Mary, to suicide. Patty and David were in their mid-20s, Mary was still a teen.

The truth has been well and tragically documented. Now comes the real work — reconciliation.

Among Omar Khadr’s first words after tasting freedom for the first time in 13 years was a vow to prove that the boy terrorist has become a law-abiding young man.

OTTAWA - With one year to come up with a solution after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s laws against physician-assisted suicide, there are any number of options being bandied about on all spectrums of the political divide.

Amanda is recovering after battling depression for three years. The Grade 12 student, 18, is thankful for friends who helped stop her from taking her own life. 

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - After 35 years of providing counseling and a Catholic outreach to families with a loved one who died by suicide, Fr. Charles Rubey has consulted on more than his share of the resulting funerals or wakes.

OTTAWA - The Canadian Medical Association says the majority of its members continue to support its policies against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. 

DUBLIN - In the wake of the largest pro-life demonstration ever to have taken place in Ireland, cracks have begun to emerge in the coalition government over its plans to legislate for abortion.

MANGALORE, India - Thousands gathered at Our Lady of Health Church in Shirva, just outside Mangalore, for the funeral of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who killed herself after falling for a hoax from Australian radio announcers.

Her hands covered her face. She was weeping inside herself, her body shaking. “I know I need to let go,” she cried, “but I don’t know how. I can’t.”

Before she was 14, Marie already experienced tragedy, not once but several times: violence, betrayal. It’s buried deep within her. She carries it like an interior mountain without realizing the weight. No wonder she can’t stop clinging to the person who’s been for her a little life raft in the middle of the Pacific, but who is pulling her under the roaring waters. How can she let go of him, even though he’s harming her?

Suicide rates in girls between the ages of 10 and 19 have increased 54 per cent over the past 30 years, says a recent study from the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Researchers from the Public Health Agency of Canada reported that 50 females between ages 10 and 19 committed suicide in Canada in 1980, compared to 77 in 2008. Conversely, suicide rates among young males declined from 249 suicides to 156, a 37 per cent decrease.

“It’s hugely disturbing, but not surprising,” said Sr. Susan Glaab, a campus minister and spiritual director at King’s University College.

OTTAWA - A bill to create a national suicide-prevention strategy received overwhelming multi-party support Feb. 15, sailing through a second reading vote 285-3 in the House of Commons.

Bill C-300: An Act Respecting a Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention, now goes to committee for further study.

A national suicide prevention strategy was among the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care that the bill’s sponsor, Conservative MP Harold Albrecht, chaired with NDP MP Joe Comartin.