Freemason-Friendly Bishop Also Pro-Gay

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NEWARK, N.J. (ChurchMilitant.com) - It appears the faithful of Newark, New Jersey are getting a Freemason-friendly bishop as one of their three new auxiliaries.

Without ever mentioning the Church's teaching on salvation, the pro-LGBT bishop-elect Michael A. Saporito discussed religious pluralism in an interview with a Freemason on local television.

Saporito is one of three clerics Pope Francis appointed in February to assist pro-gay Cdl. Joseph Tobin of Newark as one of his auxiliaries.

As pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Maplewood, New Jersey, Saporito founded a group for LGBT people called "Open Arms Ministry" and appeared on an episode of SOMA Television's Community Corner titled "One Community, Many Faiths."

Patrick Swift, a clinical psychologist, author and Freemason, interviewed Saporito, who said the "big boom" that opened the doors to interreligious dialogue was Vatican II and compared living the gospel to interreligious dialogue:

We don't only want to talk about the gospel, we want to live the gospel; I think that is true in religious [sic] dialogue, too. We want to make it more than just words. We want to make it something that is very, very tangible for people to see so that they are energized, too. … It is one thing for religious leaders to be energized by such a vision, but how does it get down to the common folk who come into our churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever and how do we transmit to everybody else that this is very, very important for all of us to understand.

Discussing St. Teresa of Calcutta, the pro-homosexual Saporito said, "I would want Catholics to be stronger Catholics, as Mother Teresa would say, and to respect those who had their faith — and would want them to pursue their faith and give their heart to the best of their ability ... ."

The Interviewer

Doctor Patrick Swift is the author of One Mountain, Many Paths, published in 2007 and featured in Issue 31 of The Working Tools Masonic Magazine in 2008.

According to a description on Amazon, the book "manages to show not only that there is wisdom in all the world's great faith traditions, but also the remarkable similarity of religious message."

Swift once trained to become a Jesuit priest and in a press release for the book said, "I see Freemasonry as an interfaith fraternity in which I can share a common belief in God with men of other faiths while maintaining my identity as a Catholic. Being able to call a Jew or a Muslim my brother increases my hope for peace in the world."

He went on to say, "I prefer the use of the terminology 'nonjudgmentalism' as obviously there are certain things that we will not tolerate. But we can leave the judgment to God and accept most any faith as reverential."

"There is no other organization in the world that brings more diverse men together peacefully than Freemasonry. This seems to me to be OUR CALLING in society," concluded Swift.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches:

846: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847: This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church.

The next section teaches "the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men," a duty the Church teaches belongs first and foremost to the clergy, according to CCC 939: "Helped by the priests, their co-workers, and by the deacons, the bishops have the duty of authentically teaching the Faith, celebrating divine worship, above all the Eucharist, and guiding their churches as true pastors."

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