GREENVILLE (TX)
Herald Banner
February 6, 2019
By Travis Hairgrove
It began more than a half-century ago: the trail of lawsuits, settlements, internal Catholic Church documents and public reports of sexual abuse allegations against Patrick J. Lynch.
Lynch is one of 31 former Diocese of Dallas priests whose name was released last week on a list of priests with “credible allegations of sexual abuse” against them. The accusations against the priest date back to 1966 and include several lawsuits and settlements, records show.
Now deceased, Lynch was never removed from service; instead, he was reassigned to new parishes at least 12 times over the course of his 36 years in the priesthood.
He retired in 1997, after the Diocese of Dallas “discovered a church memo” dated 1966 in his personnel file revealing the sexual abuse had been known and documented even then.
Since Lynch’s retirement from St. Joseph Catholic Church in Richardson in 1995, the diocese has paid out several settlements to individuals alleging that Lynch sexually abused them as children.
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