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Father Daniel Lynch, O. Carm., a Veterans' Hospital chaplain for 21 years, died Dec. 17. He was 77. He served as a chaplain at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Montrose from 1977 until his retirement in 1998. Before that, he served for five years as a chaplain at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Early in his career, he was a high school teacher in Auburn and Rochester and in Pottsville, Pa. Father Lynch lived in retirement at St. Albert's Priory in Middletown, where he volunteered in the Carmelite Development Office and gave talks and retreats for Third Order Carmelites and the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. He also served in leadership positions with the Province of St. Elias over the years, including prior of the Pottsville, Pa., Carmelite community and the Carmelite Community in Scarborough. Born in the Bronx, he entered St. Albert's Junior Seminary in Middletown as a teen. He received his habit in 1947, professed final vows in 1951 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1954. He earned a bachelor's degree at St. Bonaventure University in Olean and a master's at New York Theological Seminary. He is survived by a brother, Joseph Lynch. A Funeral Mass was offered Dec. 20 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown, with burial in the Carmelite Cemetery there.
