Earl K. Fernandes

Earl Kenneth Mario Fernandes (born September 21, 1972) is an American Catholic prelate who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Columbus in Ohio since 2022.

Fernandes is the first Indian-American bishop of the Latin Church in the United States, is the first person of color to serve as the bishop of the Diocese of Columbus, His parents were Latin Church Catholics who moved to the United States in 1970. Earl Fernandes has four brothers, one of whom is a deacon in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The Fernandes family emigrated from India to the United States in 1970, settling in Toledo, where Sydney had gotten a job as a physician and Thelma as a teacher. 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. 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.

Earl Fernandes attended parochial school at St. Thomas, then went to St. Francis De Sales School in Toledo, graduating as salutatorian in 1990.

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.

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.

After returning to Ohio, Fernandes joined the faculty at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati, later serving as its academic dean.

In 2014, the archdiocese assigned Fernandes to serve as parochial administrator of Sacred Heart Parish in Cincinnati. Fernandes was named a Missionary of Mercy by Pope Francis for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2014. In 2016, Fernandes went to Washington D.C. to serve as secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. When Vigano was replaced later that year by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Fernandes remained as secretary.

Fernandes returned to Cincinnati in 2019 to become pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola Parish in Cincinnati. His predecessor had resigned due to a rape allegation. Parishioners at St. Ignatius spoke highly of Fernandes and his management of St. Ignatius following the other priest's removal.

Fernandes also served as a judge on the archdiocesan marriage tribunal and as a board member of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.

Bishop of Columbus The cathedra at St. Joseph Cathedral with Fernandes' ecclesiastical arms. 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. 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.

In July 2022, Fernandes assigned a diocesan priest to run the Newman Center of Ohio State University in Columbus. The Newman Center had been run by the Paulist Fathers for the past 65 years. According to the diocese, it took control of the center to align it more closely with the objectives of the diocese and to promote the addition of new Catholic lay organizations, including Opus Dei and Courage International. The Paulists then decided to leave the Newman Center completely. Previously, the Paulist Fathers-led ministry at the Newman Center featured "a year-round resident community of retirees and middle-aged adults with children." In 2024, the director of the OCIA program at the Newman Center recognized the new diocesan director's support of the OCIA program as accounting "for the pretty tremendous growth that’s happening there and the number of students who are being brought in." In a 2025 interview with Catholic World Report, Fernandes noted that he "took some heat" for assigning diocesan priests to run the chaplaincy, but noted that "it is bearing fruit. We’re seeing young men interested in becoming diocesan priests." The diocese experienced a notable growth in priestly vocations during Fernandes' episcopacy, more than doubling from 17 in 2022 to 37 in 2024.

Fernandes is a fourth-degree Knight of Columbus, as well as a member of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Distinctions

Foreign orders Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre