Appointment of the Bishop of Metuchen (U.S.A.)
September 15, 2026
This morning it was announced that 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 Christlife, 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.
