The Fernandes family emigrated from India to the United States in 1971, settling in Toledo. Sydney worked as a physician and Thelma as a teacher.[8] When Earl Fernandes was a child, his mother started every day with a morning offering prayer. When the family went to visit Sydney while he was working at St. Charles Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, they often found him praying in the hospital chapel in his break time.[6] Sydney frequently offered free medical care to patients.[8][9][6]
The Fernandes family attended St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Toledo, a working-class parish that Earl Fernandes says was a second home to him.[10] Thelma made yearly pilgrimages to the Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Cary, Ohio. At the shrine, she gave her boys money to light the devotional candles as she wrote down her petitions.[11]
During a 1995 trip to Rome, Fernandes said he began to feel a call to the priesthood while praying at the Tomb of Saint Peter in Saint Peter's Basilica. He studied medicine for two years at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio, before leaving to prepare for the priesthood.[15]
In 1997, Fernandes entered seminary studies at Mount Saint Mary's of the West in Cincinnati. He was ordained a deacon on September 29, 2001. Fernandes earned Master of Theology and Master of Divinity degrees from Mount Saint Mary in 2002.[14]
Priesthood
St. Ignatius of Loyola Church (Cincinnati, Ohio), where Fernandes was pastor
In 2004, the archdiocese sent Fernandes to Rome to study at the Alphonsian Academy. He attained his Licentiate in Moral Theology in 2006 and his Doctorate in Moral Theology with a concentration in bioethics in 2007.[13][14] During this time, he encountered the lay ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation, and was deeply impacted by it. His episcopal motto is drawn from a prayer of the movement.[16][8] While in Rome, Fernandes also trained as an exorcist with Carmine De Filippis, an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome.[17][18]
After returning to Ohio, Fernandes joined the faculty at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati, later serving as its academic dean.[4] In 2013, he published a book, Seminary Formation and Homosexuality, with the Institute for Priestly Formation. The book defended Pope Benedict XVI's ban of the admission of gay men to Catholic seminaries.[19]
In 2014, the archdiocese assigned Fernandes to serve as parochial administrator of Sacred Heart Parish in Cincinnati.[14] While there, he celebrated the Tridentine Mass along with masses in Italian and English. He later said most of the attendees at the Tridentine masses were young people, whom Fernandes characterized as:
... Looking for reverence and beauty, a sense of transcendence, and to be connected to their parents and grandparents, the generations of faith... The Latin Mass is also quiet. There’s so much noise and business in our lives. They enter into the liturgies interiorly and love it for its tradition, the Faith of their fathers.[20]
Fernandes returned to Cincinnati in 2019 to become pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola Parish in Cincinnati.[23] His predecessor had resigned due to a rape allegation.[24] Parishioners at St. Ignatius spoke highly of Fernandes and his management of St. Ignatius following the other priest's removal.[25][26]
Fernandes also served as a judge on the archdiocesan marriage tribunal and as a board member of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.[14] Fernandes was active in the Beacons of Light program in the archdiocese, which sought to consolidate its 208 parishes into 57 clusters, each with one priest.[27]
On April 2, 2022, Fernandes was appointed the 13th bishop of Columbus by Pope Francis. Fernandes was consecrated by Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, with Archbishop Pierre and Bishop Robert J. Brennan serving as co-consecrators, on May 31, 2022 at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westerville, Ohio.[28] Fernandes was the first Indian-American bishop to serve in the United States, as well as the first person of color to serve as bishop of Columbus.[29]
^"The right medicine". One Faith, One Hope, One Love. The Catholic Community Foundation for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. August 18, 2015. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2022.