Bishop Earl Fernandes attributes his ascent to the episcopacy to devoted parents in Toledo who put the Catholic faith first and foremost in their lives and of their five sons.

He realized early on the gift his parents had given him and his brothers. The family lived their faith at home, in church and at school – and it was evident at a young age that Earl might be on track to have a vocation to the priesthood, though he might not have realized it at the time.

In a recent interview, he recalled a prediction that his eighth-grade classmates made  that young Earl would become the Catholic Church’s first pope born in America.

He went on to graduate No. 2 in his class in 1990 from Toledo St. Francis de Sales High School, served by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales order of priests, and then moved on to the University of Toledo for undergraduate studies in biology, graduating in 1994. 

“We had religious brothers and priests teaching us not just religion but calculus and physics and chemistry, and so I thought it was perfectly normal to consider a priestly vocation,” Bishop Fernandes said of his high school. “When I was a junior in religion class, we were asked, ‘Have you ever thought about being a priest?’ And I checked ‘yes,’ because I thought about it. ‘Would you like to receive literature?’ I thought, why not.

“When it came to the house, my dad and I talked about it a little bit. But in my mother’s mind, she would have us pray that you would be a good boy, a tall boy, and a doctor like my dad. People respect doctors, and medicine is a noble profession. And my thought was, OK, that’s what I’m going to do even though I had this sense of the call.”

“I didn’t have him in class, but I knew him well,” said Father Ron Olszewski, OSFS, who was principal at St. Francis de Sales when Bishop Fernandes was a student there. “I knew all of the brothers, and the family was a wonderful Catholic family. They were all very, very good students.”

He recalled that Bishop Fernandes took several advanced placement courses and was involved in “academic” activities that included the yearbook and newspaper staffs, the debate team and chess club. 

“They were all academic things, but I would not describe him as a reclusive nerd,” Father Olszewski said. “He was just a very intelligent person with a bent toward those kinds of extracurricular activities.”

One of the qualities that resonated with the former principal, who is still involved with the high school, is the smile that has become one of Bishop Fernandes’ trademarks.

“Great personality, and I remember him always having a smile, even after he was ordained,” Father Olszewski said. “I think that is absolutely wonderful that you’re going to have a bishop who is happy.

“Peace and joy are two of the most frequently used words in the New Testament. And if you have a bishop that exudes peace, joy, happiness in his vocation, I think that’s great.” 

After high school, the future priest’s next stop was medical school at the University of Cincinnati, where he hoped to follow in the footsteps of his physician father and brothers.

After two years of med school in Cincinnati, he began to discern more seriously a vocation to the priesthood. In 1996, he went to Rome to spend a year of discernment, and in 1997 he decided to abandon the physical healing profession and turn to the spiritual healing a priest can provide. And in 2002, at age 29, he was ordained in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which he has served since then until he was ordained and installed as the 13th bishop of Columbus on May 31.

He will become just the fourth known native of the Toledo diocese to be ordained a bishop. The others are Bishop James R. Hoffman, the bishop of Toledo from 1980 to 2003 and a native of Fremont; Bishop Robert W. Donnelly, auxiliary bishop of Toledo from 1984 to 2006 who hailed from Toledo; and Bishop Robert Baker, the retired bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, and Birmingham, Alabama, who was born in Willard.

One of the new bishop’s brothers, Karl, serves on his high school alma mater’s board of trustees.

“Like I said, they were a very strong Catholic family, just wonderful, wonderful, good Catholic people,” Father Olszewski said.

Father Olszewski and some of the Oblates priests at the high school attended the installation and ordination at Westerville St. Paul Church to witness the first graduate from the school to become a bishop in the Catholic Church. 

“For the Oblates and all the faculty and staff here at St. Francis, the significance is twofold,” said Father Geoff Rose, OSFS, the current president at the school. “It affirms that our greatest desire is happening, namely that each person is becoming who God created them to be. And second, it reinforces that the ministry of education is worth our lives. 

“For the students, it is a powerful reminder that they are all forming each other every day, and God has a plan for each of them in the future.”

Father Marty Lukas, OSFS, who was at the school when Bishop Fernandes was a student and became principal the year after he left, never taught him in a class but was certainly aware of him.

“My memories of Earl are that he was a true scholar and always a gentleman,” Father Lukas said. “He respected his classmates and the faculty and staff of our school community. Earl was an extremely positive young man ... always trying to see the good in every situation or person. He always had a smile on his face.

“I am sure that his parents would be very proud of him today as are we from the St. Francis de Sales School community.”

Father Olszewski pointed out that the school’s namesake, St. Francis de Sales, was the bishop of Geneva in the early 1600s, and so it might be said there’s a line of succession. St. Francis de Sales, designated as a doctor of the Church, is also the patron of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales order and of the Diocese of Columbus.

“You can’t ask for a much better representative of the school,” said Father Olszewski, who arrived at St. Francis de Sales in 1974, and his roles have included principal, vice principal and president. In 2015, he retired after 40 years as an administrator but continues to teach a theology class and assists with fundraising for the school’s foundation.

Father Olszewski planned to give the new bishop a surprise gift of a pectoral cross worn by the late Bishop Joseph Crowley, a longtime rector of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in South Bend, Indiana, and an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend from 1971 to 1990. Bishop Crowley died in 2003 at age 88. 

“I studied at the University of Notre Dame and was very close with Bishop Crowley,” Father Olszewski said. “I preached at his funeral, and I have one of his pectoral crosses that I am going to get all cleaned up and give to him.”

Father Olszewski expects the biggest adjustment for Bishop Fernandes will be the demands on his time that leading a diocese will entail. 

“I think he was aware of that tendency to get himself involved, and I do believe that God gives you the grace to do what he calls you to do.”