Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez (born May 30, 1951) is the current President of Paraguay and the former Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro.

Lugo's family was not particularly religious; by his own account, he never saw his father set foot in a chapel. However, his upbringing was emphatically political. His uncle Epifanio Méndes Fleitas was a noted Colorado Party dissident and was persecuted and exiled by General Stroessner's regime. His father was imprisoned twenty times, and some of his elder siblings were sent to exile too. He received his basic education at a religious school in Encarnación, all the while he worked selling snacks on the streets.

At age 17 or 18, against his father's wishes of him becoming a lawyer, Lugo entered a normal school, and began teaching at a rural community. He was well accepted within this people, who were very religious, but they had no priest. He recalls that he was touched by that experience, discovering his vocation, and so he decided to enter a Society of the Divine Word seminary at age 19. Lugo was ordained a priest on August 15, 1977. That same year he was sent to Ecuador as a missionary for five years. There he had the opportunity to learn about the controversial Liberation theology.