Right Reverend Dr. Fidelis Lionel Emmanuel Fernando (Tamil: பிடெலிசு பெர்னாண்டோ, Sinhala: ෆිදේලිස් ප්රනාන්දු; born 20 May 1948) is a Sri Lankan priest and current Roman Catholic Bishop of Mannar.
[2] The family were devout Catholics, and part of the Sri Lankan Bharatha community descended from immigrants from Vembar, Tamil Nadu.
[2][3] He became part of the St. John Berchman's Society of Altar Servers at St. Lucia's Cathedral, and joined the St. Aloysius Seminary after completing his Ordinary Level exams, where he was a contemporary of Malcolm Ranjith.
[1][2] In August 1969, he was sent to the Pontifical Urban University by Cardinal Thomas Cooray; he graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Theology, and was ordained a priest on 6 January 1973 in Rome by Pope Paul VI alongside 38 others from 19 nations on the 350th Anniversary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
[1][3] In the period between 1991 and 2011, he went on to hold several ecclesiastical appointments in the country:[1][2] Three of Fidelis' siblings also went on to serve in the Catholic clergy in Sri Lanka: his brother Joe was attached to the Diocese of Jaffna, while two sisters- Assumpta and Micheline- joined the Apostolic Carmelite Congregation.