Page 1831 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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He immediately set to work to try to improve their lot, both spiritually and socially and in the sporting field.
On the spiritual front, he established the first praesidium of the Legion of Mary, partly as a welcoming group for young people and partly to encourage prayer as part of their lives.
On the social front, he established the Marian Club, a social club for young Catholics though members’ friends who were not Catholic were also admitted to membership. Fr Lynch knew that a social club that met in some presbytery or church hall or even some place like the Albert Hall would not get off the ground. But he also knew that everyone in Canberra liked to go to the Hotel Canberra, the swankiest social venue in Canberra. It was then managed by a Mr Thorley Thorpe who was not a Catholic. By means that, as far as I know, have never been explained, Mr Thorpe was persuaded to make rooms at the hotel available for the monthly meetings of the Marian Club at some nominal fee. The Club was an instant success and continued to thrive long after Fr Lynch had handed on the reins of the Club to others.
In the Ireland that Fr Lynch left, the idea of a Catholic sporting club was almost unheard of. Church of Ireland sporting clubs - tennis or hockey or soccer or cricket - were common enough in the bigger cities. But these were organised by the small minority religious groups. In Australia, where Catholics were in the minority, there was a long tradition of Catholic sporting groups or clubs. The CLTA for tennis; the CYMS and the YCW for football and cricket and billiards and snooker. Hockey being Fr Lynch’s sport, he immediately set about organising the St Patrick’s Hockey Club. For a number of years, he and some other Canberra priests played in the team in its formative years. St Patrick’s remains one of the premier hockey clubs in Canberra today. Members and former members of that club have turned out in numbers tonight to celebrate its founder’s 60th anniversary of ordination.
In all these organisations, Fr Lynch remained a significant force until he was formally transferred as Assistant Priest to Fr Morgan O’Connor at Yarralumla when it was established as a parish in 1959.
With Fr Pat Cusack, however, he had worked mainly in Yarralumla for l or 2 years prior to 1959. He had acquired 2 houses close to the Church and school in one of which the PP still lives.
Yarralumla was to be my Parish. It was new; the foundation stone for the school (which was to serve as our church for a number of years) was laid by the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Carboni in September 1956. The school had been built without any government assistance and there was much to be done in and around the building. Fr Lynch and Fr Cusack led the work by example. Yarralumla is much indebted to both priests.
Whilst he was at Yarralumla, Fr Lynch introduced the Cursillo movement to Canberra. He started mainly with young people from Yarralumla but it soon spread. Like so much else of his work, the Cursillo movement continues to thrive.
In 1965, Fr Lynch was appointed the founding PP of Holy Trinity Parish, Curtin. He quickly acquired, on behalf of the Archdiocese, a house in Dawson Street close to the land that had been set aside for Church and school. The lounge room he turned into a chapel where he celebrated Mass every day except Sunday. On Sundays, Mass was said in the Hughes Community school hall.
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