In Memory of

Kevin

Lynch,

C.S.P.

Obituary for Rev. Kevin Lynch, C.S.P.

August 27, 2022
Fr. Lynch in the 2010s.

With great sadness, we announce that our brother, Rev. Kevin Albert Lynch, C.S.P., Publisher Emeritus of Paulist Press, has entered eternal life.

He died shortly after midnight on Saturday, August 27, 2022, at the Mary Manning Walsh Home in New York City, at the age of 97.

Fr. Lynch had been a member of the Paulist community for 76 years and a priest for 69 years.

As an editor and publisher at Paulist Press for four decades, he helped to reinvigorate the Paulists’ publishing tradition in the mid-20th century. Among his creations was the well-known “Classics of Western Spirituality” book series.

Kevin Lynch was born in Belmont, MA, on April 4, 1925, the third of the four children of John and Mary Doherty Lynch.

During his childhood, he later recalled, he was deeply affected by his parish priest who solicited money from the wealthy, bought food, and then delivered it under cover of night to needy families during the Depression so they wouldn’t be embarrassed.

He was educated in public schools in eastern Massachusetts and, for two years, in Pittsfield after a promotion took his father there.

For college, he attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. Among his classmates was Anastasio Somoza, later the Nicaraguan dictator.

At West Point, he was active at Most Holy Trinity Chapel and was mentored by Fr. Joseph Moore. Fr. Moore invited then-Cadet Lynch to explore his extensive library. He read deeply in the British writers and converts who were instrumental in the English Catholic renewal in the early 20th Century, such as Ronald Knox and G.K. Chesterton, as well as the German Karl Adam.

In conversations with Fr. Moore, the young Kevin Lynch discerned his priestly vocation. He knew he did not want to be a parish priest. Fr. Moore said, “Go to the Paulists. They’re first class.”
Fr. Lynch (back row, fourth from left) with the Paulist ordination class of 1953.



He entered the Paulist novitiate shortly after his graduation from West Point in 1946.

He recalled that during his opening novitiate retreat, while listening to talks on the Paulist Founder, Fr. Isaac Hecker’s mystique, spirituality, and mission, “I thought to myself, this is exactly what I’ve I wanted and I’ve never regretted it, I never had a doubt.”

Kevin Lynch made his first promise to the Paulist community on September 8, 1947, and his final promise on September 8, 1950.
Paulist Fr. Kevin Lynch gives a first priestly blessing to Bishop Fulton Sheen in May 1953.
Fr. Lynch in the early days of his priesthood.



He was ordained a priest on May 1, 1953, by Bishop Fulton Sheen, who was then an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York.

In his first priestly assignment, he served for four years at Newman Hall at the University of California at Berkeley.

Fr. Lynch moved to Paulist Press in 1957 and took over the “pamphlet division” in 1961. He realized quickly that the operation had to move away from pamphlets into longer but still affordable paperbacks. “I realized that the old apologetical pamphlet of `we’re all right and they’re all wrong,’ those days were over,” he remembered.

The Second Vatican Council (1962 to 1965) had a massive impact on the work of Paulist Press.

No explicit decision was made to focus almost entirely on the council, Fr. Lynch recalled, “It was just intuitive. You just saw that this was the future. This was the most exciting thing that had happened in the church since producing the response to the Reformation. Vatican II and the renewal of the church fitted the Paulist mystique like a glove.”

Under his leadership, the initial efforts were to put out the Vatican II documents with commentaries and several volumes of council speeches. Paulist Press also published the first several years of the important journal “Concilium.”

About this same time, he oversaw moving the editorial offices to a series of locations in Bergen County, New Jersey, settling at its current home in Mahwah in 1985.

It was in these years immediately after Vatican II that Paulist Press became one of the most influential English-language publishers when it came to the great work of understanding, explaining, and especially implementing Vatican II. Fueled by the council’s enthusiasm and the Press’s growing reputation in the field, both established and younger scholars in large numbers brought their ideas and manuscripts to Fr. Lynch and his team of mostly lay editors.

“There was a gravity to it all,” he recounted. “It just sort of came towards us. These bright Vatican II people coming with ideas.”

Pamphlet series yielded to Paulist Press’ accessible and affordable paperbacks, along with parish programs including “Come to the Father” in the 1970s and “Renew” in the 1980s.

The “Classics of Western Spirituality” book series brought to a wide audience not only the fruits of Catholic spirituality, but also great writers in the Jewish, Muslim, and non-Catholic traditions.

Faced with an initial list of the usual Catholic classics, Fr. Lynch recalled thinking, “We don’t own God. We think we do, but we don’t. This is one of the great things coming out of Vatican II, this respect for these other traditions and trying to build bridges and understand them not as competitors or heretics.”
A small sampling of titles in the “Classics of Western Spirituality” series.



Started in 1978 with a volume on Julian of Norwich, the “Classics of Western Spirituality” series now totals well over 100 titles and is known not only for its readable translations and contemporary cover art, but also for its excellent introductions that place a particular spirituality in its historical context. From the start, Fr. Lynch said, “I knew right away that this was going to fly right to the moon.”

Paulist Fr. Frank DeSiano, past president of the Paulist Fathers and current head of Paulist Evangelization Ministries, said Fr. Lynch “was singularly outstanding for the Paulist contribution to the Post-Vatican II Church. This was true throughout the English-speaking world.”

“As editor of Paulist Press, Fr. Kevin had an uncanny sense of which books would communicate the values of Vatican II in a language accessible to clergy, religious, and lay people,” said Fr. Frank. “This meant that he had a deep and subtle theological understanding which allowed him to evaluate and disseminate the various offerings of religious writers from 1965 through the 2000’s.”

Fr. Frank added, “The Classics of Western Spirituality was a bold move, one that made the core of spiritual writers throughout religious traditions accessible to people. The introductions and footnotes in these volumes put writers into context and also brought greater clarity for people who wanted to pursue a direction in spirituality further.”
Fr. Lynch at a Paulist Press event in the 2010s.
Fr. Lynch in 1998

Fr. Lynch retired from Paulist Press in the late 1990s but continued to read manuscripts and provide editorial advice for some 15 years after that, while living at the Paulist Motherhouse in New York City.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by two brothers, James and John Lynch, and his sister, Mary Patterson Alexander. He is survived by many nieces, nephews, cousins and their children.

In 2018, an interviewer asked Fr. Lynch, “Have you ever thought of, when you meet God, what you might say? What questions you may have?”

Fr. Kevin chuckled heartily in reply.

“I don’t think I will be interrogating God,” he said. “I think I will listen. I think I will thank him. Thanks to God for all of the gifts he has given me, such an interesting and wonderful life.”


A Funeral Mass for Fr. Kevin Lynch, C.S.P., will be celebrated on Thursday, September 1, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City. A visitation will be held at 1 p.m. in the church with a Mass of Christian of Christian Burial to follow at 2 p.m.

The Mass will be broadcast live on the Church of St. Paul the Apostle’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.