NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post
Nov. 20, 2019
By Priscilla DeGregory
A Pennsylvania man claims that a gay Irish priest — who is celebrated for his work advocating for LGBT and AIDS causes — abused him 40 years ago at a Bronx Catholic high school, according to a new lawsuit.
The 57-year-old, who filed the court papers anonymously, says he was 16 when Campus Chaplain Bernard J. Lynch sexually abused him after Christian Club meetings at Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx in 1978 and 1979, a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday alleges.
The accuser brought the case against the archdiocese, the high school and several other religious orders for negligently failing to look into why Lynch had “frequent transfers between assignments,” the court papers say.
The suit claims the school should have warned the teens family about Lynch.
“Defendants further breached their duties by hiding a pedophile and engaging in a cover-up of abuse perpetrated by Fr. Bernard Lynch,” the court documents charge.
The alleged victim has filed the suit in the wake of the Child Victims Act that went into effect in August, which allows people who were abused as kids to bring claims that have already passed outside the statute of limitations.
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