Fr. Bernard J. Lynch

Contact Us


Table of Contents


Search Site

  Home

Google listing of all pages on this website


Site Map


Toby Johnson's Facebook page


Toby Johnson's YouTube channel


Toby Johnson on Wikipedia


Toby Johnson Amazon Author Page



Secure site at

https://tobyjohnson.com

Also on this website:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Toby Johnson's books:

Toby's books are available as ebooks from smashwords.com, the Apple iBookstore, etc.

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness

GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe

SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:  A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods

THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil

TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams




CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers

THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell

IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey

Unpublished manuscripts

About ordering

Books on Gay Spirituality:

White Crane Gay Spirituality Series

  Articles and Excerpts:

Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness

Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"

About Liberty Books, the Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996

The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate

A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality

Why gay people should NOT Marry

The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage

Toby and Kip Get Married

Wedding Cake Liberation

Gay Marriage in Texas

What's ironic

Shame on the American People

The "highest form of love"

Gay Consciousness

Why homosexuality is a sin

The cause of homosexuality

The origins of homophobia

Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness

What is homosexuality?

What is Gay Spirituality?

My three messages

What Jesus said about Gay Rights

Queering religion

Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men

Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?

The purpose of homosexuality

Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality

What the Bible Says about Homosexuality

Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men

Varieties of Gay Spirituality

Waves of Gay Liberation Activity

The Gay Succession

Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?

The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter

Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium

Easton Mountain Retreat Center

Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism

The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey

The upsidedown book on MSNBC

Enlightenment

"It's Always About You"

The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara

Gay Spirituality

Curious Bodies

What Toby Johnson Believes

The Joseph Campbell Connection

The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)

Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy

The Two Loves

The Nature of Religion

What's true about Religion

Being Gay is a Blessing

Drawing Long Straws

Freedom of Religion

The Gay Agenda

Gay Saintliness

Gay Spiritual Functions

The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.

The Sinfulness of Homosexuality

Proposal for a study of gay nondualism

Priestly Sexuality

Having a Church to Leave

Harold Cole on Beauty

Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption

Not lashed to the prayer-post

Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality

Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process

Notes on Licking  (July, 1984)

Redeem Orlando

Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar

Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson

Mystical Vision

"The Evolution of Gay Identity"

"St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul."

Avalokiteshvara at the Baths

 Eckhart's Eye

Let Me Tell You a Secret

Religious Articulations of the Secret

The Collective Unconscious

Driving as Spiritual Practice

Meditation

Historicity as Myth

Pilgrimage

No Stealing

Next Step in Evolution

The New Myth

The Moulting of the Holy Ghost

Gaia is a Bodhisattva

The Hero's Journey

The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016

The  Gay Hero Journey (shortened)

You're On Your Own

Superheroes

Seeing Differently

Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil

Allah Hu: "God is present here"

 
Adam and Steve

The Life is in the Blood

Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"

Seeing with Different Eyes

Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom

What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?

The Vision

The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside

A  Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside

The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis

The Techniques Of The World Saviors

Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby

Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection

Part 4: A Course in Miracles

The Secret of the Clear Light

Understanding the Clear Light

Mobius Strip

Finding Your Tiger Face

How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated

About Alien Abduction

In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke

Karellen was a homosexual

The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance

Intersections with the movie When We Rise

More about Gay Mental Health

Psych Tech Training

Toby at the California Institute

The Rainbow Flag

Ideas for gay mythic stories

People

Kip and Toby, Activists

Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.

Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement

About Hay and The New Myth

About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"

About Michael Talbot, gay mystic

About Fr. Bernard Lynch

About Richard Baltzell

About Guy Mannheimer

About David Weyrauch

About Dennis Paddie

About Ask the Fire

About Arthur Evans

About Christopher Larkin

About Mark Thompson

About Sterling Houston

About Michael Stevens

The Alamo Business Council

Our friend Tom Nash

Second March on Washington

The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"

Book Reviews

Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:

Gay Perspective

Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe

Gay Spirituality

Gay Identity and 
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness

Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman








Secret Matter

Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction

updated








Getting Life in Perspective

A Fantastical Romance

The Fourth Quill

originally published as PLAGUE

The Fourth Quill is available as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie Moreland. Click here

Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo

with Walter L. Williams

Two Spirits  is available as an audiobook  narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here

Finding Your Own True Myth:

The Myth of the Great Secret III









In Search of God  in the Sexual Underworld












The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

This was the second edition of this book.

Priest/Activist

Bernard J. Lynch is a Roman Catholic priest, now living in London. He has a long history of fighting for gay Catholics’ personal dignity and therefore for DIGNITY, the gay Catholic affiliates group.

Bernard was an AIDS educator and chaplain in New York City during the height of the health crisis.

Because of his positive and compassionate embrace of homosexuality and gay identity, he was wrongly accused of unethical behavior with a student and persectued by his Church.


The story of that persecution is told in the book A Priest on Trial.





His website is http://www.frbernardlynch.com/

He is proudly married to Billy Desmond (since 1998).



In 2017, Bernard & Billy married again in Ireland—now fully legal!
See story below

He is author If It Wasn't Love: Sex, Death and God. 

"All Religion is about the denial of God. This is a book about Life, Love, Sexuality, Death and God. It is a story of many people’s stories, but most of all it is my story. Here for the first time is a truth birthed from fear and oppression and redeemed by love. When I first started putting the book together, I had some scattered ideas as to how I would do this. Some of the scenes written in the early seventies and eighties were never intended to form part of a whole. They stood alone, as a lecture here or an article there. This is in fact true for most of the project in hand. It is my hope and indeed my belief that the book holds together as one man’s attempt to be honest with God. I hasten to add that in no way is this a holy book. The words erection and Resurrection, masturbation and Holy Mass all appear with equal authenticity, pain and celebration. It is no book for the pious or those seeking a quick fix."

---

Bernard sent out a beautiful Easter greeting in 2021 (during the time of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic):

EASTER 2021

Unimagined Hope

People become what they are open to. Much of our troubles in society are produced by the unreadable and unpredictable convolutions of our own character. How little we know ourselves and what we do know is often not helpful. When things go right it is equally often beyond our control. It seems that there is something else at work, fate, God, life, destiny. But if we can keep hope, even in the face of despair, we can transform our sorrow into life and joy.

We may live in pain & sorrow, but if we keep hope we will never be useless. We can do for others what may not have been done for us. If we can learn to live with our pain, then we can know the pain and injustice of the world, and so briefly, but transcendentally we can release each other from pain. This is a great gift. Our honour, our experience, our intelligence tells us that freedom to hope, not happiness is the precious stone.

One cannot cling to happiness. Happiness will submit to no clinging. There is a truth in the theatre & a truth in life — they meet, but they are not the same, for life, God help us, is the truth. Life & love teach us that our passion for freedom is not necessarily friendly. It is arrogant, superbly contemptuous of all that is not itself, and as the very definition of passion implies the impulse to freedom, it has a mighty intimidating power. It contains a challenge. It contains unspeakable hope.

UNSPEAKABLE HOPE that is what Easter means to me. Have a Happy Easter.

---

Bernard Lynch has appeared in the news and been interviewed for TV, radio, and the Internet, in particular, a 3-part series made in 1987 by Great Britain's Channel 4 called AIDS: A Priest's Testament.


Matias Wilboa has put all Three Documentaries made by Channel 4 on YouTube.


AIDS: A Priest's Testament: http://ow.ly/Dnle7 on YouTube

This compelling documentary shot for Channel 4 in the summer of 1987 tells the story of Fr. Bernárd Lynch and his ministry to people with AIDS in New York. The Irish born priest and psychotherapist was closely involved with the LGBT community and founded the first pastoral outreach to people with AIDS in the city. He was subsequently drafted onto the Mayor of New York's Task Force on AIDS. His ministry and his commitment to civil rights for LGBT people led him into conflict with the Catholic Church authorities as well as bringing him into the most harrowing situations; preparing young people for their untimely deaths. The documentary profiles the man, his ministry and the pressures that brought him close to the edge of his physical and spiritual limits.  (Conor McAnally, Director.)


A Priest of Trial: http://ow.ly/DnkZr on YouTube

This documentary film was made in 1992 and charts the savage attempt to silence the ministry of Fr. Bernárd Lynch. An openly gay priest in the Roman Catholic Church, Fr. Lynch was given an ultimatum by the Vatican and falsely accused of paedophilia. The accuser, John Schaefer admitted at Trial in the Bronx Supreme Court, that he had been forced against his will to bring the charges.The judge, Justice Burton Roberts, not only dismissed the charges and berated the politically motivated prosecutors from the District Attorney's office, but dramatically and fiercely declared Lynch wholly innocent.This film -- with live footage from the Trial -- is a vital testimony to the lengths that some will go to silence truth, love and compassion, with lies, hate and the abuse of power. (Conor McAnally, Director.)

Soul Survivor: http://youtu.be/P8kG9kGQ8CE on YouTube

In 1986, Father Bernárd Lynch was immersed in the AIDS pandemic in New York City. During an interview about his ministry on World AIDS Day of that same year, in Ireland, he denied he was gay. This he later described as "the greatest sin I ever committed". This documentary made by Channel 4 in 1989 'to correct the lie', traces the personal struggle of this remarkable priest to come out at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence in Ireland. The truth cost him his job. He was never allowed licence to earn his living by the Catholic Church. With outstanding courage and dignity his father stands with him in the third of three personal profiles by Channell 4. (Conor McAnally, Director.)

Mr. Billy Desmond and Dr. Bernárd Lynch to Wed 27 January, 2017 in Clare

 

Mr. Billy Desmond, left, and Dr. Bernárd Lynch on a recent visit to New York

 

Mr. Billy M. Desmond and Dr. Bernárd J. Lynch will marry on Friday, 27 January at 3 PM at the Armada Hotel, Spanish Point—the first gay male wedding to be registered in County Clare. The Registrar is Ms. Theresa Quinn. Mr. Desmond, a psychotherapist and Dr. Lynch, a retired priest and psychotherapist, reside in London and Lehinch, County Clare, Ireland. They have been together for more than 20 years.
 
Their relationship was first blessed in a public ceremony in London in 1998 by their late friend, Fr. Dan Kelliher, OSCO, a Trappist monk from the monastery in Snowmass, Colorado at a time when same-sex marriages were not legally recognized. In 2007, they had a Civil Partnership in Camden Town Hall in London.
 
After the wedding ceremony, a presentation will be made of a proclamation from the Council of the City of New York honoring Dr. Lynch’s more than 40 years of service to and activism with the LGBT and AIDS communities. It is authored by the Council Member Daniel Dromm of Queens, NY and will be presented by Mr. Andy Humm, a former New York City Commissioner of Human Rights. A copy of the proclamation is pasted below and attached. Council Member Dromm’s message is online at https://youtu.be/bkyMl_Z1JEY
 
In lieu of gifts, the couple is requesting donations to an organisation they are establishing called Bronntanas to further the mental health and well-being of Irish LGBTQI people. More information at www.bronntanas.org 

THE COUNCIL

CITY OF NEW YORK

Proclamation

 
Whereas: Rev. Bernárd J. Lynch has been a tireless advocate for the rights of LGBT people for more than forty years as an out gay and proud Roman Catholic priest beginning with his work in Dignity/New York in the 1970s; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch founded in 1982 and sustained the first AIDS ministry in New York City with Dignity/New York, aiding thousands of people with AIDS in the darkest years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic by healing their spirits, reconciling them with their faiths and their families, guiding them through their deaths, and celebrating their tragically short lives as documented in the documentary films AIDS: A PRIEST’S TESTAMENT in 1986 and SOUL SURVIVOR in 1990; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch’s leadership in the AIDS crisis included service on Mayor Edward I. Koch’s Task Force on AIDS and was recognized by the AIDS National Interfaith Network with their Award for Outstanding Contributions to HIV/AIDS Ministries in 1990; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch, at great personal risk, publicly advocated for the rights of the LGBT community at a time when most religious voices were in opposition; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch publicly supported Mayor Edward I. Koch’s Executive Order 50 in 1984 compelling City contractors not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation;
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch also publicly campaigned for and testified in favor of New York City’s lesbian and gay rights bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in jobs, housing and public accommodations, seeing it through to passage by the City Council in 1986; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch’s advocacy for LGBT rights brought down on him a false prosecution perpetrated by church and government officials opposed to his work—charges that he faced down in Bronx Supreme Court, winning total exoneration from Justice Burton Roberts as documented in the documentary film A PRIEST ON TRIAL in 1990; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch continued his ministries in London and Ireland and worldwide touching thousands with his books and television/radio appearances including the BBC’s premier interview show “Hardtalk” in 2013. He was amongst the first ever openly LGBT group invited to Arus an Uachtaráin (President's official residence) by President Mary Robinson in 1995.  He was the first priest of any denomination to march in London’s LGBT Pride Parade, co-founded a support group for gay priests, served as Chair of the Camden LGBT Forum, served as Co-Chair of the first London Irish LGBT Forum that led the first Irish LGBT group in London’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2014, and aided the “Take the Boat to Vote Campaign” to bring Irish nationals home to pass successfully the historic Irish referendum opening marriage to gay couples in 2015; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch has been honored with the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement’s award for “Longstanding Work and Witness” to LGBT people and people with HIV/AIDS in 2008, the Magnus Hirschfeld Award for outstanding service to the cause of Irish LGBT Freedom in 1986, with canonization by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and as one of the twenty most prominent people to come out of County Clare; and
 
WHEREAS: Father Lynch’s relationship with his husband Billy Desmond was publicly blessed in 1998 and he became the first serving Catholic priest in the world to have a civil partnership in 2006; now therefore
 
BE IT KNOWN: That I, Daniel Dromm, Council Member of the 25th District, am proud to honor minister, advocate and human rights champion
 

Father Bernárd J. Lynch

For his extraordinary service to the LGBT and AIDS communities of New York, London, and Ireland and for his courage in the face of tremendous adversity.
 
Signed this 27th day of January in the year Twenty Seventeen.
 

DANIEL DROMM
Council Member, 25th District
Queens