Posted June 25, 2012

Father William J. Lynch, S.J., a Jesuit for 76 years, died June 10 in Mooresville, N.C., where he had served at St. Therese Catholic Church for 20 years. Father Lynch, who was 94, spent more than 20 years at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia.

The son of Margaret Kearney and William J. Lynch of Reading was a 1935 graduate of Loyola High School in Baltimore. He entered the Jesuit novitiate following high school graduation.

Following a year of studies at the St. Ignatius House of Studies in Manhasset, N.Y., he went to Woodstock College in Woodstock, Md., where he earned his bachelor’s degree in classics in 1941, his licentiate in philosophy in 1942 and his licentiate in sacred theology in 1949. He was ordained to the priesthood June 20, 1948. Later, in 1969, he earned a master’s degree in classics from Villanova University.

Father Lynch began his long career as an educator at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia in 1942 where he taught juniors for three years. After ordination he was assigned to Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., where he taught freshmen for a year before returning to St. Joseph’s Prep in 1951 an assignment that would last 20 years. He taught English, Latin and Greek to juniors and freshmen.

A funeral Mass was celebrated June 13 at St. Therese Church with burial on June 19 at the Woodstock Jesuit Cemetery in Woodstock, Md.

Father Lynch is survived by a brother, Richard Lynch of Glendora, Calif. He was predeceased by his sister, Dorothy Thompson of Towson, Md.