November 16, 2025
With great sadness, we announce that our brother, Rev. John E. Lynch, C.S.P., entered eternal life on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at the Sacred Heart Home in Hyattsville, MD.
He was 101 years old.
Fr. Lynch had been part of the Paulist community for 83 years and a priest for 74 years.
He served for decades as a professor and administrator at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
John Edward Lynch, Jr., was born in 1924 in New York City, a son of John Edward Lynch, Sr., and Julia Glennon Lynch.
When he was nine years old, his family moved to Washington, D.C.
The Lynch family attended church and prayed together regularly, and young John, or “Jack” as he was nicknamed, served as an altar boy. With an uncle as a Jesuit priest, “there was a family connection” to the priesthood, he told an interviewer. “The option (of becoming a priest) was always there.”
He attended St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C.
“I grew up in a very non-Catholic neighborhood where there was much misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge about our faith. After some investigating, I found out this was the Paulist mission, and I realized this was the best thing I could do with my life – to share the Catholic church that was so important in my life with those who did not know it,” he said.
He studied for two years in the Paulist minor seminary in Baltimore, MD, before entering our novitiate in 1944.
He made his First Promises in 1945, his Final Promises in 1948, and was ordained a priest on May 1, 1951.
His first assignment was as associate pastor at St. Paul the Apostle in Los Angeles from 1951 to 1955 before returning to Baltimore to teach Latin for a semester at the Paulist seminary.
He then moved to Toronto to study at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies while assisting at St. Peter’s Church. In a joint academic program, Fr. Lynch earned a licentiate in medieval studies at the institute and doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto.
He returned to St. Paul’s College, our then-major seminary in Washington, D.C., as a professor in 1959.
In the 1960s, he began to teach medieval history at The Catholic University of America’s School of Arts and Sciences. This role soon expanded to a joint appointment with the university’s School of Canon Law.
After becoming a full professor, he served as chair of the canon law department from 1974 to 1983 and chair of the history department from 1983 to 1986.
Fr. Lynch also was vice provost for graduate studies at CUA for most of the 1990s.
In 2000, after retiring from CUA, Fr. Lynch became the Paulist archivist, based at St. Paul’s College. He served in this role through 2016 when he moved to the Sacred Heart Home in Hyattsville.
For more than 30 years, Fr. Lynch also served on weekends at Most Holy Rosary Church in Upper Marlboro, MD.
In 2021, Fr. Lynch celebrated the 70th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. In 2024, he turned 100 years old, making him the second centenarian in the history of our missionary society.
In addition to his parents, Fr. Lynch was preceded in death by his brother, Robert Lynch; and his nieces, Mary Berry and Patricia Sager.
He is survived by his niece, Sue Weir; his Paulist brothers; and his one-time colleagues and friends at CUA.
Our prayer for our brother, John:
May the angels lead you into paradise,
may the martyrs come to welcome you,
and take you to the holy city,
the new and eternal Jerusalem.
The Mass of Christian Burial for Rev. John E. Lynch, C.S.P., will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
The principal celebrant of the Mass will be Very Rev. René Constanza, C.S.P., president of the Paulist Fathers.
The homily will be preached by Rev. Frank DeSiano, C.S.P.
Fr. Lynch’s cremated remains will be placed in the Paulist section of St. Thomas the Apostle Cemetery in Oak Ridge, NJ, on Saturday, December 13, 2025, at 11 a.m.
