By Guy Kovner
The Press Democrat
October 22, 2009
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091022/ARTICLES/910229971/1033?Title=Bishop-Ziemann-dies-at-68
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| The Bishop Patrick Zieman displays the Chalice as the St. Francis Solano eighth grade class is gathered around during the first mass of the school year in Sonoma, August 29, 1999. |
Former Santa Rosa Catholic Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann died early Thursday at an Arizona monastery where he had lived since resigning from leadership of the North Coast diocese 10 years ago.
Ziemann, 68, who suffered from pancreatic cancer, passed away at 3:28 a.m., said Fred Allison, spokesman for the Diocese of Tucson.
An energetic and engaging church leader, Ziemann served as Santa Rosa's fourth bishop from 1992 to 1999, when he abruptly resigned after admitting his homosexual relationship with another priest.
The diocese subsequently disclosed that Ziemann had left it $16 million in debt. Ziemann went to live at Holy Trinity Monastery, a modest Benedictine facility near Tucson.
Friends said last month that Ziemann's cancer had spread to his liver and that he was prepared to die.
“We've lost a very holy man who spent nine years in the desert atoning for his sins,” said Joe Piasta, a Santa Rosa attorney who served as Ziemann's lawyer and was a close friend. “I miss him already.”
Bishop Daniel Walsh, who succeeded Ziemann in 2000, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Ziemann, the scion of a prominent Los Angeles family, was the first local bishop to deal with the sex abuse scandal that erupted in the Santa Rosa diocese in 1994.
He removed three priests accused of sexual misconduct and secretly paid more than $560,000 in church funds to an unknown number of victims of clergy abuse.
Ziemann retained his priesthood and bishop's title in self-imposed exile to Arizona. The Santa Rosa diocese said it no longer had a relationship with Ziemann and did not pay his salary.
Piasta and Monsignor Thomas Keys of Star of the Valley Church in Oakmont drove to the monastery two weeks ago to visit their ailing friend.
“I had seven wonderful years in Santa Rosa,” Ziemann told them, according to Piasta. “I'm ready to go to my maker.”
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