1903 – 1980 (July 17)
Paul Keough Lynch, son of John R. Lynch and Eleanor Keough, was born on July 24, 1903, in Towanda, Pa., and baptized on August 16th of the same year in the church of Saints Peter and Paul. After the Lynch family moved to the Bronx, New York, Paul attended the local public school. From 1918 to 1922, he was a postulant at Villanova Prep, Villanova, PA. On June 23, 1922, he was received into the novitiate at Villanova, professed first vows on June 24, 1923, and solemn vows on June 24, 1926. He received a B.A. degree from Villanova College, studied theology at Augustinian College, Washington, D.C., and was ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1929, by Bishop Thomas J. Shahan, D.D., at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
After ordination Father Lynch was assigned to St. Thomas Monastery, Villanova, Pa., where, as a student-priest he was a prefect of students until 1930. During the summer of 1930 he served in St. Augustine Parish, in Troy, New York, and then, Mother of Good Counsel Parish on Staten Island, New York. From December 1930 to July 1932, he was a member of the faculty at St. Augustine High School in San Diego, California. In 1932, he was assigned as an assistant in the parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, Jamaica, New York. Beginning in January, 1933, he spent six months teaching in Havana, Cuba, and then, for the next twenty years, from 1933 to 1953 he was an assistant at the Parish of the Immaculate Conception, Hoosick Falls, New York. Here he also taught Religion to the seniors of the parish school and was moderator of the high school baseball and basketball teams. In January, 1953, he was elected as fourth Definitor to the Provincial and in July of that year he was appointed Prior and Pastor of the Assumption, B.V.M., Parish in Lawrence, MA. From 1956 to 1965, Father Lynch was Prior and Pastor at the Church of St. Patrick in Cambridge, New York. From 1965 to 1968, he was Pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Greenwich, New York. From 1968 to 1971, he served as Prior in St. Rita Parish, Philadelphia, Pa. Then, from 1971 to 1976, Father Lynch was Prior at St. Paul’s Parish in Mechanicville, New York, and, at the end of that assignment, he retired to St. Mary’s Parish Community, Waterford, New York, where, in 1976, he celebrated the golden anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.
When Father Lynch became ill, first he was sent to the Mary McClellan Hospital, Cambridge, New York, and then spent his last weeks at the Hoosick Falls Health Center, where he died on July 17, 1980. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Hoosick Falls. Interment followed at St. Paul’s Cemetery in Mechanicville, New York.
