Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks as the next archbishop of New York, plucking an apolitical administrator from his native Illinois to lead the nation’s most influential Catholic diocese.
The Vatican announced the appointment on Thursday shortly after noon Rome time, or 6 A.M. on the East Coast. An afternoon mass of thanksgiving was planned for St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, the mother church of the Archdiocese of New York.
The 58-year-old bishop of Joliet will take over from the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has presided over a downsizing of parishes and multimillion-dollar payouts to clergy sex abuse survivors. His installation date is pending.
The archbishop-elect is a former priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He served for two years as an auxiliary bishop there under Cardinal Blase Cupich before moving to neighboring Joliet in 2020.
He also served as a seminary administrator under the late Cardinal Francis George, who led the Archdiocese of Chicago from 1997 to his death in 2014.
Several Catholic insiders described Archbishop-elect Hicks to The Washington Times as a competent administrator well-suited to address New York’s abuse claims and declining church attendance.
They noted that while he appreciates tradition, he is less likely to take ideological sides than U.S. bishops appointed under previous popes.
“I think you’ll see in him a priest and a pastor who defies political characterization,” said Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, who attended seminary in the Chicago Archdiocese with Bishop Hicks. “Just take the time to get to know him.”
The pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, has repeatedly expressed a desire for unity since becoming the first American elected to lead the Catholic Church on May 8.
Insiders say the Hicks appointment suggests a quiet pivot away from ideological litmus tests for bishops under the traditionalist Pope Benedict XVI and the progressive Pope Francis, who alienated different segments of the U.S. church.
Former Rep. Daniel Lipinski, a pro-life Chicago Democrat who attends mass in the Joliet diocese, said it would be wrong to view Bishop Hicks as a prelate in the mold of the Benedict-appointed Cardinal Dolan or the Francis-appointed Cardinal Cupich.
“It really bothers me that the right and left are making claims about who he is and what he’ll be like,” said Mr. Lipinski, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution. “He speaks when he has something to say, but he’s not someone who steps forward on politics like Dolan or Cupich.”
Mr. Lipinski said that Bishop Hicks is “not really a political bishop,” despite putting out “a very good statement” praising the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned the national right to an abortion.
U.S. Catholic sources leaked news of the appointment Monday night on X.com, citing a Spanish-language report. The Times confirmed the appointment through independent sources on Tuesday morning.
The leak prompted a flurry of competing social media narratives about the archbishop-elect’s politics as he prepares to lead New York City’s 2.8 million Catholics.
Progressives emphasized that Archbishop-elect Hicks served as a young priest in Latin America, making him likely to support the immigration-friendly policies of Pope Francis, who died in March.
They described him as a protege of the Democrat-adjacent Cardinal Cupich, confirming the latter’s influence on the first American pope.
Parishioners in the Joliet diocese pushed back on this narrative, however. They noted that Bishop Hicks also protected Latin masses in Joliet from a purge under Pope Francis, demonstrating his care for traditionalists.
By contrast, the reigning archbishops of New York and Chicago have taken clear political sides in recent years.
Conservative Catholics and clergy led a protest against Cardinal Cupich in September for attempting to give a lifetime achievement award to retiring Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a pro-choice Democrat.
Pope Leo defended the cardinal’s leadership, but Mr. Durbin ultimately declined the award that would have recognized his immigration advocacy.
Named archbishop of New York in 2009, Cardinal Dolan has earned a reputation for defending conservative Catholic teachings with an upbeat style. He delivered the invocation at the Republican National Convention in 2020 and recently described the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a “modern-day St. Paul.”
Most recently, Cardinal Dolan announced a plan this month to sell off $300 million worth of properties in the Archdiocese of New York to fund payments to clergy sex abuse survivors.
The Rev. Robert McTeigue, a Catholic podcaster and former seminary professor for the Diocese of Buffalo in upstate New York, predicted that the sprawling New York metro area would challenge the new archbishop.
“The Archdiocese of New York is probably too large and complex for anyone to govern well,” Father McTeigue said in an email. “But it’s not too big to fail. I will pray for him.”
