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Becoming A Bishop And Remaining A Vincentian: The Struggles Of Archbishop John Joseph Lynch, C.M., Richard J. Kehoe C.M.

Vincentian Heritage Journal

Members of the Congregation are not to seek the Church’s honors. For this reason, the nineteenth general assembly (1843) declared that Vincentians who assumed episcopal positions without the superior general’s consent would be deprived of suffrages for the dead. Vincentian John Joseph Lynch was the third bishop and first archbishop of Toronto. Although he wrote to Superior General Jean-Baptiste Etienne about his appointment to the bishopric, he did not receive a reply. His well-known dedication to the community, an assurance from his predecessor that Etienne had consented to his elevation, and the fact that he wrote to Etienne had led …