Correction: This story has been updated as incorrect details were included in its first printing. The Register apologizes for its error.

OTTAWA - A private member's bill that would axe the controversial Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act has passed second reading and will now go to committee for further study.

Conservative MP Brian Storseth's Bill C-304, which would repeal the so-called hate speech provision act, passed second reading by a 158-131 vote Feb. 15.

TORONTO - One of the most persistent voices for religious engagement in every public debate in Canada, a scholar and a popularizer of modern Scripture scholarship has died. Rabbi Gunther Plaut was 99 when he passed away Feb. 8.

Many Toronto Catholics will remember his column in The Globe and Mail through the 1970s and '80s. But Rabbi Plaut was also famous for one of the most widely read commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures. The Torah: A Modern Commentary has been through 13 printings and was last revised in 2005. It has sold almost 120,000 copies.

TORONTO - Catholics in the Greater Toronto Area are being invited to pray and celebrate with Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins when he returns from Rome as Canada’s newest cardinal.

Collins and 20 other bishops were to be elevated to the  College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI at a Feb. 18 ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The local celebrations will begin Feb. 29 at a High Pontifical Mass at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Cathedral to be followed by a luncheon at a nearby hotel ballroom. Due to the space limitations at the cathedral, these events are by invitation only.

OTTAWA - An Ottawa-based think tank said mandating gay-straight alliances (GSAs) as part of Ontario government’s anti-bullying strategy will only force students into activism.

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC) warns of negative effects on freedom and equality if Ontario’s Equity and Inclusion Strategy forces students to move “beyond tolerance to acceptance and respect.”

“Diversity will only flourish in Ontario schools when students are encouraged to respectfully interact with different thoughts and opinions,” said the IMFC in its study entitled Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy Reviewed. [DOWNLOAD REPORT HERE]

TORONTO - While Syrians endure shelling and sniper fire from their government, Iraqi refugees among them are hunkered down in the Sayyida Zainab neighbourhood of Damascus hoping they can get out before things get much worse.

“If you stay away from any mass demonstrations, stay away from any political activity, if you stay in your neighbourhood, in your church where the Iraqi refugees are, nobody will target you,” is the advice the Office of Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto (ORAT) is giving hundreds of Iraqi refugees that Toronto parishes and religious communities have sponsored to come to Canada.

TORONTO - Canadian Jesuits, with help from some high school students, are preparing to poke a little fun at themselves through a dinner-theatre production.

Jesuits Served Right: A Jesuit Dinner Theatre will be performed at Toronto’s Brebeuf College School Feb. 25. The project is part of the Jesuits’ celebration of 400 years in Canada.

MONTREAL - Can prayer assure your favourite NHL team a chance for a run at the Stanley Cup? An ad that is all tongue-in-cheek, taken out by the archdiocese of Montreal, is inviting hockey fans to give it a try.

In a city where the secular passion for hockey has been compared to a religion, the archdiocese has decided to ride the wave and sneak in a Gospel call to turn to God.

OTTAWA - When the Companions of the Cross met for its General Assembly Jan. 30-Feb. 3 in Cornwall, Ont., the priests had their first chance to reflect on the impact of last year’s death of founder Fr. Bob Bedard.

“The passing of a founder, of a spiritual father in Christ, is a watershed for any community in the history of the Church,” said moderator Fr. Scott McCaig, who was re-elected Feb. 3 for a second six-year term as the order’s leader.

There was nothing wrong with the sale and closure of two North Bay, Ont., churches in the judgment of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy.

Former parishioners of St. Rita’s and Corpus Christi in North Bay had appealed to the Vatican to keep their churches open for some kind of religious purpose. While they acknowledged their bishop’s right to suppress the parishes, they disputed whether he was within his rights to sell the buildings and — in the language of canon law — reduce them to profane use.

Kingston Archbishop Brendan O’Brien, centre, and Peterborough Bishop Nicola DeAngelis, right, surprise Prof. Thomas T.H. Symons with a knighthood from Pope Benedict XVI.

Symons was made a Knight of St. Sylvester at the Feb. 3 inaugural convocation ceremony for Sacred Heart College in Peterborough. Symons helped found Sacred Heart, the new Catholic college affiliated with Peterborough’s Trent University. He was also a founder of Trent back in 1964 and chairs the board of trustees for Sacred Heart College.