CANADA
The Globe and Mail
ISHANI NATH
Globe and Mail Update
Published Saturday, May. 19, 2012
More than two years after his sudden resignation and disappearance amid a growing sex-abuse scandal in his diocese, the former leader of Niagara-area Roman Catholics has been found in Montreal, located by a private investigator, according to reports.
Bishop James Wingle, 65, was photographed on April 27 after a church function outside the Marine-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral in downtown Montreal, wearing a clerical collar, the St. Catharines Standard newspaper reported. The former head of the St. Catharines Roman Catholic Diocese was served with notice of a civil lawsuit related to the sexual abuse.
Donald Grecco, a former priest in Welland, Ont., and Cayuga, Ont., plead guilty in March 2010 to sexually abusing three altar boys between 1978 and 1986. Victim Mike Blum came forward in 2005, during Bishop Wingle’s leadership, and told the church about the abuse. He later went to police.
Lawyers trying to find Bishop Wingle hired a private investigator, according to the Standard, to bring the bishop out of hiding to face lawsuits claiming that as the head of the diocese, he didn’t do enough to help victims such as Mr. Blum.
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