Local News
Welland Tribune
05 October 2010
By JOHN VESSOYAN/Tribune Staff
ST. CATHARINES — Michael Blum is not giving up.
He wants answers and accountability from the institution and people in power who betrayed him and brought him agony. He also wants other victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church to be unafraid of speaking out and disclosing their ordeals at the hands of clergy.
Blum has launched a civil lawsuit against former priest Donald Grecco, former Bishop James Wingle and the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Catharines.
He is seeking about $3 million, which includes $300,000 for pain and suffering, $100,000 for special damages and $50,000 for mental distress. His lawyers say it will take between two and five years before a settlement will be reached, which means Blum will continue to be forced to relive the horrid experiences of his teenage years when he was an altar boy at St. Stephen’s Church in Cayuga.
The Dunnville man, who is now 46 years of age, along with his lawyer Robert Talach announced the details of the lawsuit during a press conference Tuesday morning in St. Catharines.
The whereabouts of Grecco and Wingle are unknown, said lawyer Robert Talach, who is representing Blum.
More to come.
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Haldimand County : Dunnville Man Launching Lawsuit Against Former Priest
98.9 FM
05 October 2010
Posted by Ashley DeGroote
Details are expected this morning in a lawsuit launched by a Dunnville man against former Cayuga Roman Catholic priest Donald Grecco who has already been convicted of assaulting teenaged boys. Michael Blum claims he was abused by the priest in the late 1970s and is holding a media conference in St Catherines this morning to announce further details on the suit. The suit also names the Roman Catholic Diocese of St Catharines and former bishop Reverend James Wingle for what Blum calls Wingle’s lack of action after hearing about the abuse allegations . 70 year old Grecco is to be sentenced later this month after he pled guilty in April to sexually molesting two other boys in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Civil suit launched against former local priest
Siobhan Morris, 610 CKTB News
One of the victims of a local priest is launching a civil suit.
Donald Grecco, ordained by the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Catharines in the sixties, has admitted to sexually abusing three alter boys in the seventies and eighties.
70 year old Grecco acted as priest in Welland, Fonthill, Niagara Falls and Cayuga.
Mike Blum was victimized by Grecco at St. Stephen’s in Cayuga and is behind the civil suit against the former priest.
Also named is the St. Catharines Diocese and it’s former bishop James Wingle.
Blum’s lawyers say the Diocese and Wingle are named for not acting once they knew about Grecco’s “predilection for parish youth”.
Wingle resigned his post as Bishop suddenly in April.
In a letter to parishioners in August, Wingle says he is in the Holy Land, working on a book.
Donald Grecco will be sentenced in Hamilton, October 29th.