The Catholic Civil Rights League has become an unlikely ally of a Jehovah������Ƶapp Witness congregation in a case coming before the Supreme Court.

TORONTO - The fight over assisted suicide isn’t over yet. A day after a government advisory group released 43 recommendations calling for wide access to assisted suicide, the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) held its annual general meeting Dec. 15 to discuss its concerns and plans for the year ahead, a year when it seems likely Canada will legalized assisted suicide.

OTTAWA - The House of Commons voted 153-136 June 6 to repeal  Section 13, the controversial hate-crimes provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act June 6, drawing praise from the Catholic Civil Rights League.

MP Brian Storseth������Ƶapp private member������Ƶapp Bill C-304 now moves to the Senate where it will be shepherded through by Conservative Senator Doug Finley.

TORONTO - The Catholic Civil Rights League has named Michael O’Brien, a world-renowned Canadian author and artist, the 2012 recipient of the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life.

This annual award recognizes “outstanding lay achievement in advocacy, education, life issues, media and culture, and philanthropy.”

Early in his philosophy career, Professor Tom Langan was fired for being too left wing. Years later he helped found the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League, an organization often called reactionary.

Langan died May 25 at Bridgepoint Hospital. For the last five months of his life at Bridgepoint, Langan was surrounded by family, friends and former students.

He was fired in the 1950s by his Jesuit-founded alma mater, St. Louis University. But Langan wasn’t unemployed long. Indiana University took him on and he eventually rose to chair of the philosophy department.

TORONTO - The Catholic Civil Rights League of Canada has challenged the Liberal government's proposed Bill-13 over the anti-bullying legislation's focus on gender and sexual orientation.

Joanne McGarry, executive director of the league, along with league president Phil Horgan, addressed the Ontario government������Ƶapp standing committee for social policy May 15. They expressed the league's opposition to Bill-13 because of its focus on gender, its infringement on denominational rights and its impact on curriculum.

OTTAWA - The Catholic Civil Rights League has written to the Canadian Heritage Minister to ask him to review the funding of a controversial sex exhibit aimed at adolescents at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology.

Sex: A Tell-all Exhibition, opened May 17 at the Ottawa museum and runs till year������Ƶapp end.

“Based on information from the museum������Ƶapp own web site (), as well as on information provided to a local contact during a preview, I find this material is far too advanced and detailed for the age group for which it is intended, and in any case has little if anything to do with the museum������Ƶapp stated mandate ” wrote League executive director Joanne McGarry to Heritage Minister James Moore.

The notice to file a human rights complaint over a Christian Grace being said at a City of Saskatoon volunteer dinner is the latest effort to remove even the briefest of faith references from public gatherings.

It would be easy to dismiss Ashu Solo as a crank, and a rather ill-mannered one, since he was among the invitees honoured at a city volunteer appreciation dinner where a blessing said by a city councillor did not meet with his approval. Mr. Solo was invited because of his work on Saskatoon������Ƶapp cultural diversity and race relations committee. And anyone who thinks “cultural diversity” has something to do with respect for all religions and cultures hasn’t noticed how often the concept is used to remove Christian references from the public square. 

TORONTO - When religion bumps up against somebody's human rights, the best safeguard of religious freedom is reasoned, calm and respectful dialogue, said Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall said.

More than two years of consultations with religious and other groups has produced a new OHRC position on how to decide cases where the rights of one party conflict with the equally recognized rights of another. The commission's 65-page "Policy on Competing Human Rights" is aimed at encouraging employers, institutions and other groups to resolve conflicts before they wind up in a tribunal hearing or a court room.

OTTAWA - Living with Dignity (LWD), a network of anti-euthanasia groups in Quebec, has condemned the province������Ƶapp Select Committee on Dying with Dignity report������Ƶapp support for euthanasia as “dangerous” and a “profound act of political betrayal.”

After holding consultations across the province last year, on Mar. 22 the committee recommended the legalization of euthanasia for people experiencing constant, unbearable physical or psychological suffering.