The Brooklyn bishop at the center of Mayor de Blasio’s free-pass-from-the-cops folly preached perseverance to his parishioners Sunday, even as he maintained a silence-is-golden approach to the controversy.
For the second straight day, after promising he would talk, Bishop Orlando Findlayter refused to discuss the high-level phone call de Blasio made to cops before the minister avoided a night in jail on an outstanding warrant.
“This is Sunday. I am here to worship,” Findlayter said outside his Brooklyn church, where he thanked parishioners for their prayers. “I have nothing to say.”
Findlayter’s City Hall savior, meanwhile, also remained mum on the subject.
“I’ve covered this topic,” a testy de Blasio said in Albany. “I really have nothing else to say about it. I covered it in great detail on Thursday. I think it’s all been covered now.”
Findlayter, a de Blasio cheerleader and member of his transition team, was arrested in Brownsville after cops said he made a turn in his Lincoln sedan without signaling.
During the stop, cops discovered Findlayter had two open warrants for previous protest arrests.
The pastor was spared a night behind bars after de Blasio phoned an NYPD boss.
Findlayter had an opportunity to talk to his parishioners about the controversy, but preached instead about weathering the storm.
“Don’t faint,” Findlayter said. “Don’t give up. Don’t turn back. God is within you. There is hope.”
A day earlier, Findlayter blew off the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, refusing to publicly defend himself, even before a friendly Harlem crowd.
The pastor also dodged questions about his troubled finances and legal proceedings, reported by The Post Sunday, including a former tenant’s claim that he was a “slumlord” who evicted tenants from run-down buildings even when they owed little in back rent.
Meanwhile, he was racking up major debts of his own, which forced him to file for bankruptcy in 2001.
Findlayter held his nearly-2 ¹/₂ -hour New Hope Christian Church service at a rented East Flatbush banquet hall.
His congregation was evicted from a Church Avenue building in 2010 after the church fell $45,000 behind on the rent.
Findlayter rubbed elbows with President Obama at a White House breakfast last year and also joined street demonstrations in East Flatbush after 16-year-old ¬Kimani Gray was fatally shot by police.
He also delivered the invocation at the City Council’s first meeting of the year.
De Blasio, meanwhile, has come under fire for his role in the growing scandal.
Although he characterized his phone call as “appropriate,” de Blasio has said that by the time he reached out late Monday night the commander the 67th Precinct’s commander had already decided to cut Findlayter loose with a desk appearance ticket.
Findlayter vowed to stay focused, even amid the controversy.
“I am going to do two things,” he told church members. “I am going to preach the gospel and I am going to advocate for those that cant advocate for themselves.”