SIDNEY, Ohio – When Father Earl Fernandes showed up at Holy Angels Church in the summer of 2002 for his first assignment after ordination, the parish’s pastor told the women working in the office that it was a blessing to have received the cream of the crop from the class of new priests.
They still remember that day vividly.
“He was at the door, and he said hello, and he went one way and I went one way, and we went around in a circle and then just stood there and laughed,” recalled Connie Fahnke, who was the parish office manager. “We asked him if we could help him carry anything, and he said he could get it, but we ended up helping him anyway.”
Fast forward 20 years, and “when we found out that this was happening,” that Father Fernandes had been named the new bishop of the Diocese of Columbus on April 2, “I called one of my good friends who is very good friends with Father Earl, and I said, ‘Wait until you hear,’ and so I told her what was being announced,” said Jill Heitmeyer, the parish’s current business manager. “And she goes, ‘We knew that 20 years ago. I still think he’s going to be pope someday.’”
To the good people of Sidney, it became obvious early on in Father Fernandes’ two years there that he was gifted with special qualities – down to earth, relatable, intelligent, devoted, faithful, loyal, memory like a steel trap, family oriented.
And there was that engaging smile mentioned by nearly everyone who has come in contact with him. He flashed his toothy grin then and hasn’t stopped smiling throughout his priesthood.
“I think that’s why so many people relate to him,” Fahnke said. “He was always smiling from the altar during Mass. And he would walk out of Mass with this beautiful smile and joy – just a wonderful person and a good friend.”
Bishop Fernandes has never forgotten his first experience as a priest, and the people of Sidney have not forgotten him. He remains in contact with a number of them, including the first pastor he served under, Father Jerry Bensman, and the newly ordained bishop will return to offer a Mass of Thanksgiving at Holy Angels on Tuesday, June 28 at 7 p.m.
“You could tell right away that he was a very gifted person and a faith-filled person,” said Father Bensman, who was pastor at Holy Angels from 1999 to 2008 before retiring. “He was the type of person that, first of all, his faith was very important to him, and he had a gift of being able to share that through his preaching, and he was also an excellent teacher. Everybody respected him.
“But he was especially gifted with his homilies. You could give him a topic, and within just a few minutes, he would come up with ideas that would have meaning for people. It wasn’t just words.”
Bishop Fernandes has stayed in touch with some of the people he met there with cards, texts and calls, including Father Bensman, who attended the installation and ordination for his former associate pastor at Westerville St. Paul Church on May 31.
When he was to be announced as the new Columbus bishop in April, he made sure to share the good news with the folks in Sidney.
“He’s always been so good about being involved with what’s going on with Holy Angels,” said Ann Monnier, the church secretary during Father Fernandes’ time at the parish. “He really considers it his first parish family here.”
During his short stay in Sidney, he immersed himself in parish life. His homilies and passion for the faith resonated with Fahnke.
“They were always about life that you could relate to,” she said. “He would bring in the saints or what happened long ago, but he didn’t bore you with it. He didn’t make you feel like gloom and doom, and he talked about how they relate to today. He just had a gift.”
Not only did he interact with families at Mass and during parish activities, but he also visited their homes and enjoyed recreating with them – even getting on a jet ski.
Monnier and her husband visited him in Rome when he was a student there after leaving Sidney and then twice in Washington, D.C., when he served there in the office of the papal nuncio, the Church’s diplomatic representative to the United States.
In Sidney, “he interacted with grade school a lot in addition to teaching in high school,” Monnier said. “He remembers everybody, everything about them, like their kids and dates and things like that. And anywhere we went in Rome when we were visiting him, he would come up with dates and would tell us this happened here and this happened there. And it’s like, how do you remember all those places and dates? And he just smiled.”
“He definitely related well with people, and he always remembered people’s names,” Father Bensman said. “That was a special gift that he had. The next time he met you, he could recall their names. And I think that means a lot when dealing with people.
“His principal assignment was to be a teacher at Lehman Catholic High School, and he was there from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, but in the evening, let’s just say, he took on the second shift around the parish.
“He coordinated our RCIA program, he attended parish meetings and pastoral council meetings and school committee meetings, almost without fail, and he took a special interest in preparing couples for marriage.”
At the parish elementary school, the young students sometimes tried to stump the young priest or challenge him with questions, but they couldn’t trip him up.
“Very personable and sharp as a tack,” Heitmeyer said. “I remember the Lehman kids would kind of like be pushing him, and with a medical background (as a former medical student), they couldn’t stump him. They would ask him questions, and he would explain things to them, probably more than what they wanted to know. So disciplined in his faith, very devout, and he was that way with medical facts, too.”
He displayed a gift for teaching at Lehman, despite never teaching at that level, that earned the admiration of students and faculty, and he won a teacher of the year award.
“For me, I guess his legacy is just his kindness and his welcoming,” math teacher Melissa Safreed said. “What I remember most specifically were the Kairos retreats. He was so relatable in the classroom but especially on retreat. I think especially the young men just admired him so much for being so real.
“Something else that stands out is that he doesn’t forget anybody. He does not forget a face with a name and can remember occasions. He came back to celebrate Mass with us last year post-COVID, and while we were still social distancing, he remembered names of faculty and specific occasions from when he was here and just so real. What a role model, always smiling. I remember him smiling so much.”
“Even with his intelligence, he’s always been approachable,” math teacher Pam Wendel said. “Whomever he was talking to, whether it was another faculty member or talking with students, he gave you a sense of being valued, that you were first on his mind when he was talking with you and wasn’t somewhere else.”
A priest assigned to area parishes has served as chaplain and taught religion classes at Lehman. Some have had teaching backgrounds, and others have no experience. Father Fernandes was never a high school teacher before arriving in Sidney, but he clearly showed his acumen in academics, drawing upon his background as a medical student.
“Sometimes there are chaplains who are chaplains who also teach,” theology teacher Joe Schmiesing said, “but I think Father Earl was a teacher in every sense of the word. Even though he was young and inexperienced when he first came here, he was so respected by the kids.”
Schmiesing recalled a story that Father Fernandes shared while he was teaching at Lehman.
“He had somebody who tried to turn in a report, saying, ‘Well, I just don’t believe what the Church believes. So I don’t have to do this report,’” Schmiesing said. “And he said, ‘Well, I understand your opinion. However, this is an academic assignment.’
“He wrote him back like a lengthy answer on why he had to do that report. And he said the kid gave him back a good report. He was an intelligent kid who just was trying to to play him as the young priest. Well, he was serious.”
“He taught from the heart, and he has a passion for what he lives and what he role-models and what he taught in the classroom,” Safreed said.
“And I know that his parents always highly valued education,” Schmiesing said. “He had been taught that this was really, really important, and I think he brought that into the classroom. He believed that the classroom was really, really important for the students no matter who they were, where they were coming from, what their faith was.
“He wasn’t an academic, even though he really is.”
In the years since he left Sidney, some of his former students have moved to the Columbus area. He has celebrated some of their weddings while he was a priest in Cincinnati, fulfilling a promise he made to Lehman students he had in class that he would officiate at their weddings if asked.
“He’s done quite a few,” said Sister Ginny Scherer, a retired faculty member at Lehman who continues to help out at the school.
One takeaway for Sister Ginny from the future bishop’s time there was the exuberance he exhibited in serving the Lord.
“I’d emphasize the way he said Mass,” she said. “He was happy instead of being really just solemn. Mass was important to him, and it was a joyful experience when you went to Mass with him.”
“If I had to kind of sum it up,” Schmiesing said, “I’d say he was just a good priest. He is the picture of what a good priest should be.”
That priest is now the first former faculty member to become a bishop from Lehman, which was founded in 1970.
“We are honored and excited for Bishop-elect Fernandes,” Lehman principal Veronica Gaier said. “As a school, we know that he will lead with God in his heart and mind.”
Father Bensman believes his former assistant’s work at the nunciature and frequent requests for him to speak about moral ethics throughout the country paved the way for becoming a bishop at the relatively young age of 49.
“I was impressed by the fact that he was named bishop of a fairly large diocese without ever being an auxiliary bishop,” Father Bensman said.
Catholics in the Diocese of Columbus might not want to hear this, but there’s a strong sentiment in Sidney that their new bishop might not be here all that long after his predecessor, Bishop Robert Brennan, lasted just 2 ½ years here.
“He’s only 49 years old, and that’s pretty young to be able to accomplish what he’s accomplished,” Father Bensman said. “But he can handle it.”
“He’s going to be so good,” Fahnke said. “I don’t look for this to be the end for Father Earl. This is just another step.”
“Wherever you put him, if he’s a bishop, he’ll be a good man and a good priest,” Schmiesing said. “He’s not going to change his fundamental nature.”
Sister Ginny, who taught at Marion Catholic High School for 10 years and knows the Columbus diocese, summed up the sentiments of seemingly everyone in Sidney:
“I just think that they have a treasure coming.”