Rev. Raymond E. Larger

Assignment Record– Rev. Raymond E. Larger

Summary of Case: Raymond E. Larger was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1977. He assisted at several parishes before being named pastor of St. James in 1991. He left St. James in 2002 to lead Our Lady of Visitation.

In July 2003 Larger was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer in a Dayton park. He pleaded no contest, was fined $100 and put on probation for a year. The archdiocese placed him on administrative leave. Also in 2003, Larger was accused of having sexually abused an 11-year-old St. James altar boy during 1995-1997. The accusation surfaced when his accuser filed a claim with the archdiocese's victim compensation fund. The fund was part of an agreement the archdiocese made with prosecutors after it pleaded no contest to failing to report clergy sex abuse to authorities. Larger's accuser was denied compensation. In 2005 Larger was indicted on charges related to the 2003 allegations. The man accusing him subsequently filed a civil lawsuit. The criminal charges were dismissed in November 2005 because the judge did not believe Larger's accuser. The man's lawsuit also failed. Larger was on administrative leave 2005 to 2008, when he was reinstated to active ministry after review of his case by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Ordained: 1977

Start	Stop	Assignments	Town/Accusations	State	Position	Notes
1977 Archdiocese of Cincinnati Archbishop was Joseph Louis Bernardin (1972-1982).	1979	St. Teresa's	Cincinnati	OH	3/3	St. Teresa's had a school with 648-579 students.
1979 Bernardin was succeeded by Daniel Edward Pilarczyk (1982-2009).	1985	St. Ann's	Cincinnati (Groesbeck)	OH	3/3, 2/3, 2/4, 2/2	St. Ann's had a school with 539-403 students.
1985	1991	Assumption	Cincinnati (Mount Healthy)	OH	2/3, 2/4	Assumption had a school with 497-451 students, and a CCD program with 165-123 students.
1991	2002	St. James	Cincinnati (White Oak) • Larger was indicted in July 2005 on charges related to allegations he had sexually abused an 11-year-old altar boy several times between December 1995 and August 1997. The abuse allegedly included sodomy and forced oral sex. Larger's accuser said the priest told him it would be a sin not to comply because he was a messenger from God. The boy's mother reportedly was dying of cancer at the time of the abuse.	OH	1/3, 1/2	St. James had a school with 900-1151 students, and a CCD program with 36-136 students. The archdiocese pleaded no contest in 2003 to charges of failing to inform authorities of child sex abuse accusations against its priests; it agreed to set up a $3 million victim compensation fund. Larger's accuser filed a claim, but a tribunal denied him compensation, saying he wasn't credible. In July 2005 the man filed a civil suit against Larger and the archdiocese. The lawsuit failed.
1994	2002	St. Margaret Deanery	Cincinnati	OH	Dean
2002	2003	Our Lady of Visitation	Cincinnati	OH	1/2	Our Lady of Visitation had a school with 826 students, and a CCD program with 75 students. Larger was arrested in 2003 for soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer in a Dayton park. He reportedly fondled the officer and exposed himself. He pleaded no contest, was fined $100 and given a year's probation. The archdiocese placed him on administrative leave.
2003	2004					Larger is not indexed in the 2004 Directory, nor is he listed in the Cincinnati pages as at his previous or next assignments.
2004	2005	Special Assignment/St. Peter in Chains Cathedral	Cincinnati	OH	2/5 In residence
2005	2008					Larger is not indexed in the 2006-2008 Directories. Per the archdiocesan website in 2007, he was on administrative leave. The charges filed against Larger in July 2005 were dismissed in November of that year. Presiding judge Robert Ruehlman said, "It's silly to go any further with this case. The testimony I heard just isn't credible."
2008 Pilarczyk was succeeded as Cincinnati archbishop by Dennis Marion Schnurr (2009-).	2016	St. Peter in Chains Cathedral	Cincinnati	OH	4/4, 3/3, 2/2 In residence 2008-2011	Larger's case was reviewed by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was returned to active ministry in February 2008.
2008	2016	Pastoral Council Secretariat	Cincinnati	OH	Executive Secretary

Priests in a Parish: We use the following convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand 3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample page from the Directory.

Sources: Official Catholic Directory (Kenedy & Sons, 1978-2016).

• Archdiocese Faces New Abuse Suit, By Mark Hansel, Cincinnati Post, July 19, 2005
• Priest Not Guilty; Judge Criticizes Accuser, By Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, November 1, 2005
• Status Report on Clerics Credibly Accused of Child Abuse, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, cached by Google February 7, 2006
• Exonerated Priest Returned to Ministry, Archdiocese of Cincinnati Press Release, February 14, 2008
• Archdiocese Reinstates Controversial Priest after Vatican Ruling, Beacon Journal, February 14, 2008
• Once Accused, Priest Reinstated, By Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 14, 2008
• Priest in Indecency Case Reinstated, By Tom Beyerlein, Dayton Daily News, February 14, 2008
• Vatican Reinstates Priest, By Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 15, 2008
• Falsely Accused Priests Are Also Victims, By Susan M. Frazier, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 16, 2008
• Exonerated Priest Returned to Ministry, The Catholic Telegraph, February 22, 2008

Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy and Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record collates Larger's career history as it is represented in the Official Catholic Directory with the allegations against him, as reported in the media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegations we report, and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.

This assignment record was last updated on January 25, 2017.