CALIFORNIA
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record
Summary of Case: Ordained for the Los Angeles archdiocese in 1967, Ziemann 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 of the diocese accused Ziemann of coercing him into sex over a two year period, ending in 1998. Ziemann abruptly resigned, admitting to a sexual relationship with the priest, but denying coercing him. 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 the allegations. Another man surfaced in the early 2000s with claims that Ziemann sexually abused him as an altar boy in the 1960s, and a third man in 2004 accused Ziemann of sexually assaulting him as a boy in the 1970s, on the grounds of Our Lady’s high school seminary. After stepping down Ziemann spent some time in an east coast residential treatment program. In 2000 he settled into a ‘life of prayer and study’ at a Benedictine monastery in the Tucson diocese. Ziemann died in October 2009.
Ordained: April 29, 1967
Incardinated: Los Angeles
Appointed: Auxiliary Bishop Dec. 23, 1986
Appointed: Bishop of Santa Rosa July 14, 1992
Retired: July 1999
Died: Oct. 22, 2009
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