Church of The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

09/15/2026

Pope Appoints Bishop Saporito as Bishop of Metuchen

By Insider NJ | September 15, 2026, 8:38 am | in The Diner Booth

Via The Catholic Spirit:

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Michael A. Saporito, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark, as Bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen. The Diocese of Metuchen has had an administrator since November of 2025, when then-Bishop James F. Checchio was installed as the Coadjutor Archbishop of New Orleans.

Bishop Saporito said of his appointment: "I am deeply grateful and humbled that Pope Leo XIV has called me to serve as the Bishop of Metuchen. While it is not easy to leave the people and places that have formed and sustained me, I welcome this new mission with trust in the Holy Spirit. I look forward to meeting the priests, deacons, religious and lay faithful of the Diocese, walking with them as we seek to follow Jesus Christ and bear witness to the hope of the Gospel."

Most Rev. Michael Arsenio Saporito was born on May 3, 1962, in Newark, New Jersey to the late Arsenio and Anna Saporito. He is the third of four children, with an older brother Robert, and a sister Joanne and brother Richard, who are both deceased. He has many loving in-laws, nieces, grandnephews and grandnieces.

He was raised in Bloomfield and attended St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School and Paul VI Regional High School in Clifton. Graduating from Rutgers University Newark in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting, he was employed in public accounting for three years after graduation. He entered Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in September of 1987 and was ordained a priest on May 30, 1992.

Bishop Saporito served in parishes of the Archdiocese of Newark throughout his years in ministry. He has served as Parochial Vicar at St. Joseph's Church in West Orange, St. Peter the Apostle in River Edge, Our Lady of the Visitation in Paramus, and St. Elizabeth in Wyckoff. He served as Pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Maplewood from 2004-2011, and Pastor of St. Helen Parish in Westfield from 2011 to 2020.

On the archdiocesan level, Bishop Saporito has served as an assistant vocation director, and as a member of both the Priest Personnel Board as well as the Presbyteral Council. He was the Dean of the Deanery covering Maplewood, South Orange and Irvington.

On February 27, 2020, Pope Francis named Reverend Michael A. Saporito as an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark. He was ordained to the episcopacy on June 30, 2020, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Newark, and has been the Regional Bishop of Bergen County over the last 6 years. Within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Saporito has served on multiple sub-committees, most recently as a Member of the Audit Subcommittee of the Committee on Budget and Finance.

Throughout his years in ministry, Bishop Saporito has been most devoted to the New Evangelization, offering programs of faith development and awakening people to a deeper faith in Jesus Christ, while working tirelessly to foster parish renewal and intentional discipleship. He has served on the Evangelization Commission of the Archdiocese of Newark and as a Board Member for Christ-life, an Evangelization apostolate of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland.

Most recently, he has been guiding the pastoral planning initiative of the Archdiocese of Newark "We Are His Witnesses" and has been a part of the Synod team.

The Diocese of Metuchen was founded in 1981 by Pope St. John Paul II, and consists of the New Jersey counties of Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, and Warren (approx. 1,429 square miles). The total population of the area is estimated to be 1.5 million people with a Catholic population of over 670,000.

There are 90 parishes, served by 192 priests and 196 deacons, and 193 men and women religious. In the field of Catholic education, the diocese has 20 elementary schools, and 4 high schools.

Bishop-designate Saporito will be the sixth bishop in Metuchen's history.

09/15/2026

El Papa León XIV nombra a Mons. Michael Saporito, obispo de Metuchen.

Detalles: https://www.usccb.org/news/2026/pope-leo-xiv-appoints-most-reverend-michael-saporito-bishop-metuchen

09/14/2026

09/10/2026

Practice Makes Forgiving Perfect

In our moral lives, the readiness to forgive is probably the most difficult goal to achieve. Many of us struggle with the idea of forgiving those who have done us serious harm. The world endorses the thought that some offenses are beyond forgiveness.

We know this is untrue from our faith in an all-merciful Father. In the list of moral priorities there is probably nothing higher than the duty to forgive. Our ultimate fate may depend on it. As an act of omission, it may not appear to be a serious sin. When there has been severe harm, it may seem that that exonerates us from all responsibility toward the offender.

If we don’t forgive others, how can we ourselves be expected to be forgiven. One of our difficulties may be not our inability to forgive but the often-half-hearted way we do it. It can be easier to forgive those we like. It can be harder to forgive those closest to us. We may resent much smaller things in people we don’t get along with. So, it can be easy to be unfair in the way we forgive.

Today’s Gospel tells us that forgiveness is ultimately a matter of justice. We owe it to others to forgive them.

God expects it of us. When we find it challenging, we should ask ourselves if it is just wounded pride, or the superficial nature of our love of others. Asking for grace and lots of practice is the answer.

09/08/2026

Who is Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre?

September 8 marks the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the faithful in Cuba - and other Hispanic countries - Mary is also venerated on this day under the title Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

September 8 marks the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the faithful in Cuba - and other Hispanic countries - Mary is also venerated on this day under the title Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

Images of Our Lady of Charity depict Mary standing on the moon and surrounded by angels, while holding the Child Jesus, who holds a globe in one hand and raises the other hand in a gesture of blessing.

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under this title stretches back more than four centuries, to when the original statue of Our Lady of Charity was discovered off the coast of Cuba, near the village of El Cobre.

Found by two indigenous laborers and a slave boy around the year 1600, the small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary appeared after a storm that hit while the three were out at sea in an old boat looking for salt. The men prayed for the protection of Mary from the storm.

They then spotted what first appeared to be a bird floating on the water but turned out to be an image of the Virgin Mary carrying the Child Jesus on her right arm, while holding a gold cross in her left hand.

The statue had been fastened to a board with the inscription: “I am the Virgin of Charity,” and, despite being found in the water after a storm, the white material the statue was clothed in was completely dry.

Devotion to Our Lady of Charity spread throughout the country. In 1916, she was officially named Patroness of Cuba by Benedict XV, at the request of war veterans.

In 2008, a statue of Our Lady of Charity was brought to the Holy See and blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. The statue was enthroned at the Vatican Gardens in 2014.

Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba in 2012, as the Church in the country celebrated the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the statue of Our Lady of Charity. The pope entrusted the future of Cuba to the Blessed Virgin.

During Mass in Cuba in 2015, Pope Francis praised the rich devotion to Our Lady of Charity seeded in the hearts of Cubans, and urged them to imitate her in sowing “seeds of charity.”

“Generation after generation, day after day, we are asked to renew our faith. We are asked to live the revolution of tenderness as Mary, our Mother of Charity, did,” the pope said.

“Our revolution comes about through tenderness, through the joy which always becomes closeness and compassion, and leads us to get involved in, and to serve, the life of others.”

Devotion to the Virgin of Charity has expanded to other countries, including Spain, the Philippines, and parts of the United States.

In the Archdiocese of Miami, which has a large Cuban population, thousands gather each year to celebrate Our Lady of Charity on September 8. Archbishop Thomas Wenski will celebrate a Mass on Tuesday evening, which will be livestreamed due to restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

An image of the Virgin of Charity will be available for the faithful in Miami to venerate from their cars in front of St. Michael the Archangel church on Tuesday evening.