OHIO
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Daniel Pater was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1979. He was an assistant priest at St. Charles Borromeo in Kettering OH until 1982, when he went to Rome to study. He joined the Vatican diplomatic corps, serving in Burundi and Zaire in Africa, Australia, Vatican City, and in New Delhi, India.
In 1992 a woman reported to the Cincinnati archdiocese that Pater had sexually abused her, beginning when she was 14-years-old in the early 1980s and continuing until late 1990 or early 1991, during his trips back to OH. Pater had stepped in to counsel the girl after the accidental death of her brother. The girl was a St. Charles Borromeo parishioner and a student at Alter High School, which was adjacent to St. Charles. Pater admitted to the abuse. The girl sued in 1993 and received a settlement in 1995. Pater was sent to treatment at St. Luke’s Institute in MD, then returned to ministry.
In 2004 Pater’s victim again sued, along with another woman, claiming the Church did not protect children overseas from Pater. The other woman claimed, too, that Pater sexually abused her as a teenager at St. Charles in the early 1980s. The suit was withdrawn in 2006 due to a ruling by the OH Supreme Court that victims must file before age 20.
Pater resigned from his post in India in 2003, and stated he was “very sorry for what happened.” He was thereafter on Administrative Leave. In February 2014 the Vatican announced that Pater was permanently removed from ministry and commended to a “life of prayer and penance.”
Ordained: 1979
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