Julius' Office - Fr Bernárd Lynch
Colm Holmes • 24 February 2021
A Story – Al – AIDS Pandemic 1984
In 1982 I founded Dignity AIDS Ministry as a response to the pandemic ravaging the gay community in New York. The disease known first as GRID -- Gay Related Immune Deficiency — was first diagnosed in the gay community. The Church and state authorities engaged in unprecedented prejudice towards the sick and dying. The common narrative was that the 'perverts’ got what was coming to them. Dignity is a Catholic organisation for LGBTQI people and their friends. In the New York chapter we lost over six hundred of our membership to AIDS. This Article was written when there was no HIV testing. AIDS was seen as certain death. People were often diagnosed on a Wednesday and dead by Sunday. At that time, I was drafted onto the Mayor of New York’s Taskforce on AIDS.
A Story – Al – AIDS Pandemic 1984
The city had not shaken off as yet some garb of grey when my telephone
rang. "Good Morning", I answered.
"Good Morning", the voice shyly responded at the other end of the line. "My name is Al, and I was told by Gay Men's Health Crisis that I could call you if I wished to talk to a priest about being gay and stuff ... It would help if you could meet with me as soon as possible".
Julius’, the most famous and oldest gay bar in New York, is located on West Tenth in Greenwich Village. I recognized Al by his High School sweatshirt, and after the usual 'How do you do?’ "I hope you don’t mind meeting me in a Gay bar", Al uttered. "No, not at all", I answered. This place has become my unofficial office since the beginning of the AIDS crisis. I live in the North West Bronx and it is too much of a haul to get people who ask to see me travel there. The staff here know me and couldn’t be more gracious about my work and using the space to chat in confidence. Let’s have a beer.
I was taken aback by Al’s youthful appearance, and later on in conversation I was to discover that he was nineteen on his last birthday. He was tall, over six feet in height, with a slender, athletic build. My guess was that he was probably of Italian-lrish family background, with jet-black wavy hair, penetrating blue eyes and slightly sallow skin. He smiled easily and had that wonderful gift of incandescent warmth that makes one feel at ease right away.
There was one lesion (Kaposi Sarcoma) showing through his open-necked shirt which immediately confirmed what I already knew: that Al had AIDS. He was diagnosed two years ago, he told me, and at first went through the usual denial, bargaining, depression, that I have seen so many of my friends and associates go through in New York and London. "You don't sound like a priest to me", Al quipped after I said that part of the Godhead is possibly gay.
"Well,", I said, "if there is a God, it is us believers that are going to be most surprised at what He/She looks like; and on what grounds would you want me to assume that God is only heterosexual? After all, we hold that all people are made in God's image and likeness - gay and non-gay alike."
"Now you, like most gay people I know, had to reject the Church and society's definition of who God is in order to accept yourself as God made you to be. Through this painful metamorphosis comes the realization that the homosexual condition, like the heterosexual condition, is a gift of God, and if only we could accept that basic fact, so much pain would be obliterated. Everyone who cares to know, knows that people have as much freedom in choice of their sexual orientation as they do of the color of their eyes. There is no reputable psychiatrist or psychologist that would postulate otherwise.
"I know it must have been terrible for you when your parents asked you to leave after you came out to them as gay. I come across this all of the time. Metropolis’ like New York are for so many gay people their home away from home. In fact, only last week a young Irish chap who is in hospital with AIDS asked me to pick up his Mum at JFK and brief her with regard to his orientation and medical condition. "Per usual she quoted religion to me and gave me the much-too-familiar routine which she had been taught, to buttress her prejudices. But she is coming around. She loves her son, and that is a great plus to begin with. I encourage gay people to come out to their parents and families, for I do believe coming out of the closet at this particular time of Pandemic is quite possibly the greatest singular act of faith any human being could make - in himself, in others, in God. I would much prefer to be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not. The closet is such a lonely place.” ...
As his eyes filled with tears, Al said, "Yes, growing up gay is some trip, man. You know, as far back as I can remember I was always attracted to people of my own sex. At home, when I would be watching TV with my brothers, they would be raving about the beautiful chicks, whereas I was always turned on by the guys - but of course, couldn't admit it to myself, less still anyone else. In junior high and high school, I went out with some girls and tried to do it, but I felt really disgusted with myself. I remember there was this one girl on the swimming team with me, and she was always following me around. Everywhere I'd go she would suddenly appear out of nowhere. She was very pretty and not easy, if you know what I mean. Well, this one day before a meet, the other guys on the team started teasing me about when I was going to shift her and so on .... or was I a fairy or something other than a real man? I was sixteen at the time, and although I knew that the only one, I had the hots for was a guy named Bryan who was on the swim team with me, I decided to take Cathy out to prove how manly I really was!!! She ended up telling her friend that I was gay, and when word got to my friends, I didn't deny it. I couldn't deny it anymore.
"My parents eventually got the word of it and sent me to a shrink, which was a waste of my time and their money; but I played along until I finished high school. I told them then that my therapist wanted to see them to confirm what I had known from the beginning: that my sexual orientation could not be changed. They refused to see him, and instead called my uncle, a priest, in San Diego. He is a Monsignor - one of those prairie puritan types." I howled laughing at Al’s description of his uncle.
"Well, he wasn't much help. He told me homosexuality was an aberration, that if I could, 'meet the right girl’ that would 'set me straight'." We were both laughing at this point about "being set straight.” "How would your uncle like it", I said, "if someone tried to set him gay?". Al had left home shortly after his parents' request that he go for Aversion Therapy. One way or another he has been on the road since.
"Do you believe God is punishing me for who I am or what I did by giving me AIDS?” he asked. "Al, the idea of a just God waging germ warfare on the homosexual community (male homosexuals at that) together with millions of third world peoples, without including warmongers, drug dealers, wife beaters, slum landlords, etc. is absurd. This is not only distorting the faith; it is deserting it. That we all desire to be desired by one we desire is the one uncontested human proposition.” "What do you mean?" Al asked. “Well,", I answered, "did you ever stand in a gay bar cruising someone and not have your obvious interest in the guy returned?" "Yes, every gay person has experienced that", Al smiled.
"Well, I believe, in a certain manner of speaking, that everyone who bears the name, 'human', at some point in his or her life cruises God. In other words, all of us naturally and necessarily love to be loved, and if we had the possibility to be loved in life through death by a Supreme Being, we would ordinarily jump at it. Religious conversion - which is the experience by a person of the certainty that God loves him or her - is seen as the release, through knowing that the person I love loves me. The hunger for God's approval is built right into the human heart and cannot be gotten rid of.
"Precisely because the greater majority of gay people are so overwhelmed by main-line religion's rejection of them, their experience of God who is Love is destroyed. 'Hate the sin but love the sinner’. I am sure you have heard certain churchmen and women make statements about homosexuals? Well, in my ten years of working with the gay community, I have yet to meet someone who has experienced this statement as anything other than, 'hate the sin and hate the sinner."
"The facts, as you and so many gay and lesbian people have experienced them, are that in the Church there is little, if any, affirmation or acceptance of gay people. Yes, you can and will sometimes get an odd priest or religious who is genuinely pastorally concerned, but by and large the Church and religion are part of the problem rather than the solution to gay peoples' self-acceptance.
Sex is the mysterious and beautiful vehicle of procreation. It is, equally, the supreme, sublime expression of affection, love, and friendship – things, which are God-created, things which are good. And heterosexuals have no monopoly of affection and love. They are God's gifts to all. Any expression of our sexuality which exploits people, treats them cheaply, and excludes love and responsibility, is suspect. But any human tenderness, any warmth, any gentle kindling of mutual understanding, causes gladness in the Godhead."
"I believe there would be more freedom to be gay, not less, in a perfect world. A world as God intended would overflow with love. It is our sins and weaknesses which stifle natural warmth and spontaneity and love – and produce hatred, loneliness and lovelessness. But with envy, rivalry, and jealousy banished, every shade of friendship, tenderness warmth, comradeship, affection, companionship, sympathy, unity, and love would flourish. "Instead of issuing half-hearted and confusing reports, it is time the Church took its courage in both hands and asserted - loud and clear - that our varied sexuality is of God, and it is good. Homosexuality is not an aberration; it is not even second-best: it is part of the whole, part of the truth about human sexuality."
"You see, Al, faith in God's love can only come by contagion. Only carriers can truly give it to others. The love of God cannot, strictly speaking be taught to people - it must, if it is to be believed in, be first experienced as acceptance of all people as co-equals under God. The only way to give you, as a gay man, the experience yourself of being dignified and graced, is to treat you with dignity and be graceful to you.”
“No wonder you and so many gay and non-gay people ask, ’Is AIDS God's punishment?’ Coming out in Church, for the many gay and lesbian Christians, has, unfortunately, meant coming out of Church. Coming out of the closet – a process which the Church should be enabling and ennobling - is a process which must be experienced more often in the secular world rather than what passes for Christian community. If medical science does not know the answer to the AIDS pandemic, you can be sure theologians and priests don't either. AIDS is a virus, spread, in so far as we know, through the exchange of blood and semen. To venture to say more, either from God's point of view or our own, is to bask in the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
"I've gone on a bit and forgive me, but ..." but Al interrupted, "I get the message. I have always believed deep down God loved me as I am, but then everywhere I turned in the straight world I heard 'No'. So, naturally, when I was diagnosed with AIDS over a year ago now, all my Catholic guilt and fear started welling up and I began to believe that ‘they’ might be right. You remember back there when you said, ’We learn to love, not by being told to love, but by being loved.’, Well, I am going to need a lot of help in that. Do you think I can be part of the AIDS Ministry support group you run in St Francis?”
"Sure", I replied as I finished my beer and zipped up my sweatshirt, indicating a move. The sun was peeping through the concrete jungle as Al and I said our farewell at the Sheridan Square subway station.
A kid passed by and shouted, "Faggots! Queers spreading AIDS!" Amidst tears of laughter, we broke our embrace, and as I boarded my train, I thought chuckling to myself, maybe Oscar Wilde was right in thinking that, "God, in creating us, somewhat overestimated his ability".
Al's condition was a roller coaster over the next couple of years. He participated in our AIDS ministry program and was privileged to officiate at his funeral service at St. Francis Xavier’s. His parents would not even accept his ashes. While on vacation in Ireland the year of his death I buried his ashes in my mother’s grave. He is with the Angels.
Fr. Bernárd Lynch
See AIDS A Priest’s Testament for more information.
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)
Interview with Soline Humbert Irish Daily Mail 15 March 2025
A reflection by Soline Humbert for the Women’s Ordination Conference Retreat “Hidden Springs, Holy Radiance” 9 February 2025 [ see recording on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szP5h1kzEsU ] We have been gathering over the past three days in the presence of Brigid of Kildare, and I am sure she has brought gifts to each one, for my experience is that she is attentive to our needs and very generous with her help. At this stage I just want to share some of my own life journey with Brigid. I first encountered her in 1969 when I came from France to Ireland as a child on holidays to learn English. I went to a small Irish town called Tullow. As it happens it was in Tullow that on the first of February 1807 the order of nuns of St Brigid which had been dissolved at the Reformation, had been refounded by a far-sighted bishop. Symbolically an oak sapling had been brought from Kildare Town, from the church of the oak, to Tullow and planted in the grounds of the Brigidine convent where I took English classes. It was by then a majestic oak tree. It still stands to this day. Coincidentally and somewhat ironically, 1969 was also the year that Pope Paul the 6th removed St Brigid, along with 193 other saints, from the Universal Roman Calendar of saints. The reason being that there wasn’t enough evidence for her existence! That despite the fact she was the most mentioned Irish person in the writings of several centuries after her death... What was true was that her flame had been somehow extinguished, and her importance diminished in a deeply clericalised and patriarchal church as Ireland was at the time. She was in the shadow of St Patrick and very much the secondary patron Saint, reflecting the secondary position of women in general. But change was slowly happening. Having discovered in myself a vocation to the priesthood I eventually co- founded a group for women’s ordination and launched a petition to open all ministries to women in February 1993. At the very same time, which I consider providential, the flame of St Brigid was rekindled by the Brigidine sisters in Kildare Town. Women were stirring after a very long wintertime in the church and in society and becoming more fiery. Brigid with her torch was blazing a way for equality. It is then, and only then, that I came across the story of her ordination as a bishop and I remember my astonishment for I had never read anything like that before, or since, for that matter. Of course, while this fact was mentioned in many of the lives of Brigid going back to the first millennium it had been quietly left out of the pious descriptions of her life which were fed to the people. The way the story is recounted makes it clear that her ordination was considered to be very much the doing of the Holy Spirit. Objections about her gender were voiced but powerless to negate what God had done. It reminds me very much of the passage in the Acts of the Apostles when St Peter is amazed to discover that the Holy Spirit has descended on Cornelius, a gentile, and which leads him to conclude that “God has no favourites”. Brigid’s episcopal ordination at the hands of a bishop overcome by the Spirit is also a powerful affirmation that when it comes to ordination God has no favourite gender. Her ordination’s divine origin shows that Brigid was a bishop because God ordained it, and her. A very subversive truth our Church has yet to learn... As we campaigned for women’s ordination we made sure that this episode from Brigid’s life was brought into the open, again and again, despite clerical efforts to dismiss this dangerous historical memory as pure legend and keep it buried. Interestingly when the Anglican Church of Ireland, (Episcopalian) ordained their first woman bishop in 2013 it was to the diocese of Meath and Kildare! A very symbolic act. I have often gone to St Brigid’s Well in Kildare, a little oasis of peace, to spend some time with Brigid and re-source myself by the gently flowing water. After the First Women’s Ordination Worldwide Dublin international Conference in 2001 I went there again on the anniversary of my baptism and I hung my purple stole on a tree overlooking the well. I had worn that stole for many years as a sign of waiting. From now on I would wear stoles of other colours. And a few years ago, I found myself back in Tullow, as a guest speaker at the invitation of the Brigidine sisters for an international celebration. It was very moving to be able to speak of my calling to priesthood in the place where the order of St Brigid had been revived and where I had first come as a child half a century beforehand! That day I sensed very much the presence of Brigid the bishop and I was filled with joy and gratitude. In some ways we can say St Brigid has risen up and is leading the way for women to rise up. Although a woman in what was very much a man’s world and a man’s church, Brigid exudes a remarkable confidence in her being, in her words and in her actions. No doubt that confidence was rooted in a deeply contemplative life nurtured by prayer. “From the moment I first knew God, I have never let him out of my mind, and I never shall”. She embodies the authority which stems from being filled by the Spirit and a leadership at the service of peace, justice, hospitality to the strangers, charity to the poor and marginalised, reconciliation, healing and harmony with creation and care of the earth. The two Scripture readings we have just heard are very fitting for she was renowned for her practical care and generosity to those in need or suffering. Like Christ, she went around doing good. I must not be the only one who saw and heard in Episcopalian bishop Mariann Budde’s recent words the spirit of St Brigid as she used her God- given authority to plead for mercy for the people in vulnerable situations in the face of unbounded cruelty. Brigid is a bold, dynamic presence. She is said to be a woman of the threshold, of liminal places, and she is a sure guide for our times when we also are in transition on the threshold of a new church and a new world too. She calls to us to step boldly forward with our torches burning brightly, bringing the light and warmth of God’s Love to a world gone cold in the grip of darkness and despair. Her life reminds us that with “God nothing is impossible” and to expect miracles. I shall end on a light- hearted note: I went on pilgrimage to St Brigid’s Well and Solas Bhride in Kildare last Tuesday to prepare for this retreat. On the way back from the well and driving through the wide expanse of the Curragh where thousands of sheep graze freely I started seeing a multitude of rainbows. It reminded me of one of the many whimsical stories about Brigid: Caught in a rainstorm, she hangs her mantle on a sunbeam to dry. Dripping from its edges, colourful rainbows form in the water droplets, and her mantle is ‘bright’ with colour. Lady, from winter’s dark, Star of Imbolc, rise! Dance across our threshold: Scattering warm laughter Seeds of hospitality, Tolerance, forgiveness! Return again to the folk: You the Spring we yearn for! (Tom Hamill)
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