Victims of Former Priest Donald Grecco Have Their Say

By Melinda Cheevers
Niagara This Week
September 8, 2017

https://www.niagarathisweek.com/news-story/7545319-victims-of-former-priest-donald-grecco-have-their-say/

William O'Sullivan stands outside the Robert S.K, Welch Courthouse in downtown St. Catharines Thursday. He was there for the sentencing hearing of former priest Donald Grecco who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting O'Sullivan and two other boys during the 1970s and 1980s. - Melinda Cheevers/Metroland

It was something William O’Sullivan had been waiting to hear for a long time: an apology from the man who molested him decades ago.

In a St. Catharines courtroom on Thursday afternoon, former priest Donald Grecco did just that, reading out a prepared statement during his sentencing hearing, apologizing to O’Sullivan and two other victims who can’t be named because of a court-issued publication ban, that he molested while a priest at parishes in Niagara.

“It was something I needed to hear,” O’Sullivan, now 46, admitted outside the courthouse. “Do I believe he meant a word of it? No. But I needed to hear it nonetheless.”

In May, Grecco pleaded guilty to sexually molesting the three young boys in the 1970s and 1980s while he was a parish priest; two of the victims were altar boys within the parish. On Thursday, he was to be sentenced, but after a long day spent in the courtroom hearing victim impact statements from two of the three victims (the third was filed as an exhibit but was not read aloud), and submissions from both sides about proposed sentences, Ontario Superior Court Justice Joseph Nadel agreed to push his actual sentencing decision back to Oct. 24 so Grecco, now 77, can undergo a colonoscopy.

While a final decision wasn’t made on how long Grecco would be going to jail for, Nadel did say a jail term was coming. Before adjourning for the day, he took an opportunity to “censure” the former priest, calling him a fraud and rejecting his attempt to pass off the actions as youthful indiscretions as unacceptable, galling and shameful.

He said Grecco portrayed himself as a person of faith and was put into a position of trust where young boys, like the three victims in this case, would seek him out.

“You wrecked their lives selfishly to satisfy your sexual urges,” he said, noting the former priest turned his parish into a cesspool of abuse. “You were supposed to shepherd and administer to your flock, instead you preyed upon them.”

In his victim impact statement, O’Sullivan told the court that for him, as a young child during the years of his abuse, it was time spent living in secret, confusion and above all else, time spent protecting his mother.

“I was able to keep our little secret well past mom’s passing,” he said to Grecco, looking right at him from the witness stand.

His mom lived for the parish, he said, noting she had the Bible open daily on the dining room table. She belonged to the church’s ladies' group and her free time revolved around St. Kevin’s. “Year after year, decade after decade, from 1979 onward, my life had already chosen a path to see me within walls and fences for many, many, many years,” he said, adding he never once used what Grecco did to him as an excuse for his addictions or prison time. “I made extremely poor choices and that’s on me, no one else.”