Opening Mass

June 17, 2022

06:30 PM – 7:30 PM
GICC Exhibit Hall C, D

Bishop Bernard (Ned) E. Shlesinger III

Obispo Auxiliar de la Arquidiócesis de Atlanta

Bernard E. “Ned” Shlesinger III was born Dec. 17, 1960 in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Mount Vernon High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural engineering from Virginia Tech in 1983. After college, he was commissioned as an officer in the U. S. Air Force and became a pilot. His military service primarily centered on flying the C-130E Hercules from Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He retired from active duty in 1990, when he began studies for the priesthood in the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina.

He studied philosophy at Theological College at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He then entered the North American College in Rome, Italy, completing a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He also began studies toward the licentiate of sacred theology in spiritual theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was ordained a priest on June 22, 1996 in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Bishop Shlesinger served as a parochial vicar at St. Mary Church in Wilmington and then as pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Newton Grove from 1998-2007, while also serving as assistant director of vocations from 1999-2002.

He became the director of vocations and seminarian formation for the Diocese of Raleigh in 2007 and served in that role until 2013. He was the administrator of Maria, Reina de las Americas Church in Mount Olive and two other missions from 2010-2012. He became the spiritual director in the theology division of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania in 2013.

On May 15, 2017, His Holiness, Pope Francis, appointed him auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. He was ordained July 19, 2017.