Earl K. Fernandes

On April 2, 2022, Fernandes was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Columbus by Pope Francis, with his episcopal consecration and installation occurring on May 31, 2022 at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westerville, Ohio. He is the first Indian American bishop to serve in the Latin Church in the United States, as well as the first person of color to serve as head of the Diocese of Columbus. Fernandes is the fourth bishop of Columbus who was initially ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati; the others being Sylvester Rosecrans, Henry K. Moeller, and Clarence George Issenmann. At his consecration as bishop, Fernandes was the youngest ordinary bishop in the United States.

Fernandes affirmed to the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments the prior request of Robert Brennan that St. Mary of the Assumption in Lancaster to be elevated to a minor basilica. On 7 July 2022, Cardinal Arthur Roche bestowed the title of minor basilica upon St. Mary and, on August 14—the vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin—the honor was announced to the parishioners by Fernandes.

He served as the pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Cincinnati from 2019 until his appointment as bishop of Columbus in 2022. Fernandes became pastor of the parish after his predecessor was accused of a rape perpetrated prior to the former pastor being ordained as a priest. Parishioners there spoke highly of him and his management of the parish following the crisis.

In 2016, Fernandes began to serve as a secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, first to Archbishop Carlo Viganò and then Archbishop Christophe Pierre.

He was parochial administrator of Sacred Heart Church from July 2014 to March 2016. There he celebrated the Tridentine Mass along with services in Italian and English. He said most in attendance at the Latin Mass were young people

Upon returning to the United States, he then taught at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati and served as the academic dean there. In 2013, he published a book, Seminary Formation and Homosexuality, with the Institute for Priestly Formation which defended Pope Benedict XVI's ban of the admission of gay men to Catholic seminaries.

Fernandes was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati on May 18, 2002, by Daniel Edward Pilarczyk at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains. His first pastoral assignment was as vicar of Holy Angels Church and a teacher at Lehman Catholic High School. Following this, beginning in 2004, he studied at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome, attaining his licentiate in moral theology in 2006 and a doctorate in moral theology with a concentration in bioethics in November 2007. During this time, he encountered the lay ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation, and was deeply impacted by it, with his episcopal motto being drawn from a prayer of the movement. While in Rome, Fernandes was also trained as an exorcist.

Fernandes earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Toledo in 1994 and later studied physiology for a year at the University of Salford in England. During a trip to Rome in 1995, he began to feel called to the priesthood through an experience he had in prayer at the Tomb of Saint Peter in the Vatican. Like his four brothers, Fernandes was accepted into medical school and studied medicine for two years at the University of Cincinnati. He left there to enter Casa Balthazar, a house of discernment in Rome, and in 1997, he entered seminary studies for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati at Mount Saint Mary's of the West. He was ordained a deacon on September 29, 2001, and earned master's degrees in theology and divinity in 2002.

The family attended St. Thomas Aquinas Church on the east side of Toledo, a working-class church that Fernandes says was like a second home to him. He also attended parochial school at St. Thomas. Fernandes attended St. Francis De Sales School, graduating as salutatorian in 1990 — the same class as Toledo mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.

Earl Kenneth Fernandes (born September 21, 1972) is Catholic prelate who has served as the Bishop of Columbus since 2022.

Earl Kenneth Fernandes was born on September 21, 1972, in Toledo, Ohio, to Sydney Oswald and Thelma (née Noronha) Fernandes. His mother and father were born in Goa and Mangalore, respectively, but raised in Mumbai and emigrating to the United States from there in 1971. His father worked as a physician, being granted a green card in part due to the need for doctors in America during the time around the Vietnam War, and his mother was a teacher. Fernandes has four brothers, one of whom is a deacon in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Fernandes recalls that his spiritual formation was fostered by the love of the Christian faith his parents inculcated in him. Every day, Fernandes's mother started the day with a morning offering prayer and when the family went to visit their father working at St. Charles Hospital, he was often found praying in the hospital chapel in his spare time, and often offered free medical care to patients.