G. Patrick Ziemann

Ordained: 1967

G. Patrick Ziemann was ordained for the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 1967.  He  spent much of his career at Our Lady Queen of the Angels high school seminary where he served as teacher, spiritual director, vice-rector, and dean of studies. He was elevated to Auxiliary Bishop in 1987, then to Bishop of Santa Rosa in 1992. In 1999, a younger priest accused Ziemann of coercing him into sex over a two year period, from 1996 to 1998. Ziemann resigned immediately and while he admitted to a sexual relationship with the priest, he denied that it was coerced.   In 2002, a man accused Ziemann of sexually abusing him beginning in 1968, when the man was a sixth-grade altar boy, and continuing for almost twenty years. This accuser claimed that Ziemann began to pay him for sex when he was 17 years-old. Ziemann denied these allegations as well.  Another man surfaced around the same time with claims that Ziemann sexually abused him as an altar boy in the 1960s.  In 2004, a third man accused Ziemann of sexually assaulting him as a boy in the 1970s.  After stepping down Ziemann stepped down and spent the remaining years of his life at a Benedictine monastery in the Tucson diocese.  Ziemann died in 2009.

Father Ziemann's Assignments

Articles about Father Ziemann

• Los Angeles Times - G. Patrick Ziemann Dies at 68; Embattled Former Roman Catholic Bishop of Santa Rosa Diocese (22/10/2009)