Fr. Stephen Fernandes Appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay

New Delhi, 25 October 2025 (CCBI): His Holiness Pope Leo XIV has appointed Fr. Stephen Fernandes as the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Bombay. The announcement was made on 25 October 2025.

 

Fr. Stephen Fernandes, 64, is presently serving as the Secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli and is based at the Apostolic Nunciature in New Delhi.

 

Born on 20 September 1961, Fr. Fernandes was ordained a priest on 31 March 1990 for the Archdiocese of Bombay. He completed his early education at Our Lady of Salvation High School, Dadar, and Don Bosco High School, Matunga, Bombay. In 2000, he obtained a Doctorate in Moral Theology from the Accademia Alfonsiana, Rome.

 

Fr. Fernandes has served the Church in many capacities. He was Secretary of the Archdiocesan Priests Council (1991–1994 and 2004–2007) and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (1992–1994). From 2000 to 2018, he was Professor of Ethics and Moral Theology, Church Documents, and Patrology at St. Pius X College, the Archdiocesan Seminary in Mumbai, and later served as a visiting professor.

 

He also held the post of Executive Secretary of the CCBI Commission for Doctrine and Theology (2010–2018). For several years, he was the Ecclesiastical Advisor to the Catholic Medical Guild of St. Luke, Mumbai (from 2001 onwards) and the National Ecclesiastical Advisor to the Catholic Nurses Guild of India (from 2013 onwards).

 

Fr. Fernandes served as Executive Director of the F.I.A.M.C. Bio-Medical Ethics Centre in Mumbai (2008–2018) and has been its Principal Consultant since 2018. He was also Secretary of the Permanent Diaconate Programme of the Archdiocese of Bombay (2004–2018) and a member of the Executive Committee of the Cardinal Paul Poupard Foundation Chair of Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Dialogue at St. Andrew’s College, Mumbai (2008–2018).

 

From 2015 to 2023, he was Secretary of the CBCI Office for Justice, Peace and Development, and from 2017 to 2023, he represented India as a Catholic theologian in the Baptist–Catholic Dialogue of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Vatican City.

 

In November 2015, he was part of the Papal Mission accompanying Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, who served as the Pope’s Special Envoy to the National Eucharistic Congress of India held in Mumbai from 12 to 15 November 2015.

 

Fr. Fernandes has been serving at the Apostolic Nunciature in New Delhi since September 2018.

 

The CCBI extends its prayerful congratulations and best wishes to Bishop-designate Stephen Fernandes, our former colleague at the CCBI General Secretariat.

 

By Dr. Stephen Alathara