Bishop Patrick Lynch commission

Patrick Neison Lynch, a Roman Catholic priest and bishop, was born 1817 in Kilberidogue, Ireland, to Conlaw Peter Lynch and Eleanor MacMahon Neison.  In 1819, he and his parents immigrated to the United States, where they settled in Cheraw, South Carolina. Lynch attended Cheraw Academy from 1828-1829.  He then attended the Seminary of St. John the Baptist in Charleston where he studied under Bishop John England. In 1833, Bishop England sent Lynch, then 17 years old, to Rome, Italy, to study at the Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide. In 1840, Lynch became an ordained priest and returned to Charleston where he was assigned as pastor of St. Mary of the Annunciation. After the death of the second bishop of Charleston, Ignatius Reynolds in 1855, the presbytery elected Lynch to serve as the administrator of the diocese.  Pope Pius IX did not appoint Lynch as bishop of Charleston until 1857. He was consecrated in 1858. In 1864, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, named Bishop Lynch as special commissioner of the Confederate States of America to the States of the Church. He went to Rome on a diplomatic mission to meet with Pope Pius IX and present himself as the minister of the Confederate States, in hopes of gaining recognition of the confederacy.  Pope Pius IX never met with Bishop Lynch in his capacity as special commissioner.  The pope did not endorse or support the succession of the Confederate States, and Lynch’s position as a diplomat went no further. After the war, Lynch was in danger of imprisonment and was required to sign an oath of allegiance in exchange for a full pardon.  While in Paris, France, he signed the allegiance and received a declaration of pardon. Bishop Lynch died in 1882.

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