[5] He engaged in pastoral work until 1846, when his fellow Vincentian, Bishop John Odin, visited Ireland to recruit priests for Texas and Lynch offered his services.
It was demanding and often dangerous work; Lynch would later recall that he reached "the point of death three times, was anointed once, and had no priest within 100 miles.
"[2] When his health began to suffer, Lynch was sent in 1848 to recuperate at St. Mary's of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri, the American headquarters of the Vincentians and home of a diocesan seminary.
During his tenure at the Barrens, he was asked by John Timon, a fellow Vincentian and the Bishop of Buffalo, to establish a new seminary in his diocese.
[3] In 1855, while representing the American province at the Vincentian assembly in Paris, Lynch obtained approval from the Superior General for the project.
Bishop de Charbonnel, who struggled to understand English, had long sought a coadjutor to replace him so he could return to France.
[3] He supported the Irish Home Rule movement but opposed physical force nationalism, forbidding Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa from entering St. Michael's Cathedral when he visited Toronto in 1878.