Aids: A Priest’s Testament A screening and Q&A with Father Bernárd Lynch

Bernárd Lynch is an “out” gay Irish born Roman Catholic priest, author, and activist who has worked for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people and people with HIV/AIDS and other marginalized groups for almost fifty years. He has an interdisciplinary Doctorate in counselling psychology and theology from New York Theological Seminary and Fordham University.

In 1982, he founded the first AIDS ministry in New York City and was drafted onto the Mayor of New York’s Task Force on AIDS. (This was documented by Channel 4 U.K. in two documentaries, AIDS: A Priest’s Testament in 1987 and Soul Survivor in 1990.)
(As documented in the documentary film by Channel 4 A Priest on Trial in 1990, his support for LGBT+ rights brought down on him a false prosecution perpetrated by church and government officials. He won total exoneration and was declared ‘fiercely innocent’ by Justice Burton Roberts in the Bronx Supreme Court on April 21st,1989.)
(Bernárd, became the first priest of a mainline Church to march publicly in London’s Pride parade in 1992. That same year he founded a support group for Catholic gay priests which operates to the present day.)In 2014 he led the first Irish LGBT+ participants in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in London.

Bernárd’s numerous television/radio appearances include the Late Late Show, the Pat Kenny Show and BBC HARDtalk.

He was honoured with the Magnus Hirschfeld Award in 1988 for outstanding service to the cause of Irish LGBT civil rights. He was given the AIDS Interfaith Network U.S.A. award in 1990 and the Moral Leadership Award that same year.

In 2006, he became the first Catholic priest in the world to have a civil partnership marrying his partner Billy Desmond in Ireland in 2017. (This was the first gay marriage in County Clare, the County of his birth.)In 2017 Bernárd received a Proclamation from New York City Council, honouring his more than forty years of service to the LGBT and AIDS communities in the city. In 2019 he was awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad, by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. In October 2020 he was made an LGBT QUEER ICON in Philadelphia U.S.A. In 2023 Clare FM broadcast a stunning documentary by Padraic Flaherty called ‘Falsely Accused’ on Bernárd’s life winning Gold in the New York Radio Awards. In June 2023 Bernárd received a Civic Reception in his home County Clare. This is the highest honor the county can confer on any citizen.