Bishop Fernandez served as spiritual director at St. John Vianney seminary the year before he was named a bishop.

When Bishop Fernandez retired for health reasons in December 2002, he asked the people of South Florida “to help me with your prayers, and I will help you also with mine.”

Auxiliary Bishop Agustin Roman described him at that time as “a good example as a priest, as a brother and as a bishop. You preach the Gospel. But the most important thing is that you live the Gospel. You live the Sermon on the Mount.”

“Bishop Fernandez was a gentle but uplifting breeze in the Catholic world, and specifically at Sts. Peter and Paul,” said Carlota Morales, currently principal of Sts. Peter and Paul School in Miami.

She was a math teacher there, and later assistant principal, when Bishop Fernandez served as pastor of the parish.

“Bishop Fernandez always worked with a great collaborator, Father Vincent Andriuska, and together they renovated the church’s altar,” recalled Morales. Bishop Fernandez “always loved art and music,” she added.

Father Robert Vallee, who served as associate pastor when Bishop Fernandez was pastor of St. Kevin Parish in Miami, remembers him as “one of the greatest pastors I ever worked with, a man of deep, deep humility.”

Father Vallee, now a philosophy professor at St. John Vianney Seminary, also worked with Bishop Fernandez when he was spiritual director there.

Someone once described the bishop as “a true Christian gentleman,” Father Vallee recalled. He said it was the best description of a man who was “unerringly gracious, kind and gentle.”

True to those traits, Bishop Fernandez really enjoyed his time at San Pablo Church in Marathon, “a small little parish that he could run like a family,” Father Vallee said. “I think he would have stayed there the rest of his life.”

Instead, his next assignment was at the sprawling, fast-paced St. Kevin, where he could not be as intimately involved with the parishioners.

“He did it out of obedience,” Father Vallee said.

Obedience also was the reason he accepted his nomination as auxiliary bishop.

“The last thing in the world Bishop Fernandez wanted was to be a bishop,” Father Vallee said, noting that “it was a real curse for him” to have to take on the duties of archdiocesan administration.

Indeed, when his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Miami was announced on June 24, 1997, Bishop Fernandez was quoted as saying: "Sometimes people talk about the loneliness of the priests, but when you are in a parish you don't feel that loneliness because you are surrounded by love and warmth. I never thought about doing anything else but being a parish priest. But man proposes and God disposes. That's the situation here."

Born in Feb. 13, 1935 in Havana, Cuba, Bishop Fernandez was part of a family of eight children, five boys and three girls, that gave four priests and one religious to the Church. Two older brothers, Msgr. Orlando Fernandez, now deceased, and Father Nelson Fernandez, now retired, also served as priests in the archdiocese. Another brother, Fausto Fernandez, was administrator of Marian Towers, a facility for low-income seniors run by Catholic Health Services.

One sister, Sister Lilia Fernandez, is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine who ministers at Mercy Hospital. Another sister, Teresita Fernandez, lives in the Miami area and another brother lives with his wife and children in Mexico. A third sister, Ondina, also lived in Miami and died a couple of weeks before her brother.

Bishop Fernandez was ordained May 17, 1959, for his native Archdiocese of Havana. He served in four parishes there, including as administrator of the cathedral, before being forced into exile in Miami in July 1967.

Among his assignments in South Florida, he ministered to migrant farmworkers in Naranja, Homestead and Delray Beach. He served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Homestead (1978-1979); pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul, Miami (1979 to 1988); administrator of San Pablo, Marathon (1988-1989); pastor of St. Kevin, Miami (1989-1996); and spiritual director at St. John Vianney College Seminary the year prior to his appointment as bishop.

Bishop Fernandez accepted his appointment as auxiliary bishop with characteristic humility, knowing, he said, “that many others among my brother priests are better qualified than me.”

For his episcopal motto, he chose "amor ultima ratio" -- love is the supreme reason. His episcopal coat-of-arms features two clasped hands in front of a golden cross. The hands represent Miami, a meeting place and a place of welcome. Stars above the cross symbolize the Virgin Mary as well as the Cuban and U.S. flags. The bottom half features blue and white waters, representing the Caribbean Sea and the Catholic Church, which is often portrayed as the "bark of Peter."

Bishop Fernandez will be buried in the priests section of Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery in Miami.