A former cop is preparing to go from hearing the confessions of criminals to the confessions of everyday sinners – as a Catholic priest.
Nicholas Fernandez, 25, traded in his gun and badge for a Bible and rosary in August, resigning from the NYPD after 2 1/2 years so he could enroll at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers for six years of study.
“When I was a police officer . . . complete strangers would come up to me with their problems because of the uniform I had on. Now it will be because of the collar I wear,” said the Staten Island native.
“I remember I told my partner first,” said Fernandez, who used to patrolled Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay while at the 61st Precinct.
“He thought I was going to tell him to tell the lieutenant I might be late. I guess this was the last thing he expected.”
Fernandez, the eldest of six children and the son of an Irish mom and a Spanish dad, explained that what he saw on the beat led him to God.
“I came across concrete examples of what Pope John Paul II called the ‘culture of death’ – suicides, homicides and domestic situations where children are being neglected or abused or were part of drug-dominated homes,” he said.
For such troubled souls, he said, there was “no external solution” he could offer as a cop.
“There needs to be a change of heart on the inside – and that’s where a priest is needed,” Fernandez said.