Pope Leo has appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks to replace Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a friend of President Donald Trump who has served in the position since 2009, as New York’s newest archbishop, a major shake-up in the country’s Catholic leadership that appears to continue the pontiff’s pushback against Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
Leo’s decision to appoint Hicks, who has endorsed criticism of the treatment of migrants under the Trump Administration, aligns with the Pope’s own increasingly vocal defenses of migrants’ rights amid the President’s intensifying enforcement campaign across the U.S.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Hicks referred to the “great heart” he has for the Latino community at a press conference in New York after the Vatican’s Thursday announcement of his appointment.
“I was really formed by the Latino church,” said the bishop, who served in El Salvador for years leading a church-run program that provides support for orphaned children. “And I have a great heart for the Latino community. And so we have someone who not only speaks Spanish but understands that this community is a vital part of the church. And I think what you’re going to see is that I love all people.”
Read more: Pope Leo Is Becoming Increasingly Vocal About Defending Immigrants From Trump’s Crackdown
Dolan, who received Trump’s praise as a potential candidate for the papacy earlier this year, has been a prominent conservative in the country’s Catholic leadership and supportive of the President. On immigration in particular, though, he has at times been critical of Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s rhetoric and advocated this year in favor of a less hard-line and more “unifying” approach involving both increased border security and “sound, fair, and benevolent immigration reform.”
Dolan offered to resign in February from his post in New York after turning 75, which is a requirement under Church law, though many Cardinals continue to serve until the mandatory retirement age of 80. A bishop’s resignation is reviewed by the Pope, who can then decide whether to accept the submission.
Hicks is to be installed as New York’s archbishop on Feb. 6, the archdiocese said in a statement. Dolan will remain as an interim leader until then.
Dolan announced earlier this month that the archdiocese would set up a $300 million fund to settle around1,300 outstanding sexual abuse claims against priests and other staff members, saying it had reduced its operating budget and staff and would raise further money by selling off some assets.
Here’s what to know about the outgoing and incoming archbishops of New York.
Who is Timothy Dolan?
Dolan was named archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 after previously serving as the archbishop of Milwaukee. Since his appointment in New York he has also served as president of the U.S. Catholic Bishop’s conference, from 2010 to 2013, and was named a cardinal in 2012, participating in the papal conclaves in which both Pope Francis and Pope Leo were selected.
Dolan has been vocal on politics, becoming known for his conservative views. He delivered an invocation at Trump’s second inauguration and was appointed by the President to his Religious Liberty Commission this spring. Later in the year, Dolan praised the late right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk as a “modern-day St. Paul,” which drew pushback from other religious figures.
As the archbishop of New York, he has hosted the Al Smith charity dinner, an annual event which raises millions for Catholic charities and traditionally invites presidential candidates from both parties to speak in election years. During last year’s dinner, Trump dug into his then-opponent Kamala Harris, who declined her invitation, and other Democrats.
Trump referred to Dolan during a conference call with other Catholic leaders in 2020 as a “great gentleman” and “a great friend of mine,” sentiments the archbishop said were “mutual.” The same year, he spoke about Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, “I really salute his leadership” and that “the President has seemed particularly sensitive to the, what shall I say, to the feelings of the religious community,” in comments that drew criticism from other religious leaders.
In 2018, Dolan wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal with the headline “The Democrats Abandon Catholics” in which he criticized the party’s support for abortion rights.
He has been critical of both parties when it comes to immigration, however, saying in an op-ed for the New York Daily News over the summer that neither “has a particularly sterling record” on the issue. He suggested that ground for unity and bipartisan agreement could be found, outlining a vision for reform. “Protect our borders! For sure! Repair a broken policy? You bet! Hunt down and send cut-throats and dangerous criminals back? Yes!” he wrote. “But change our long and cherished tradition of safely welcoming immigrants and refugees? No! Indiscriminate mass deportation of our law abiding, industrious, dutiful neighbors only recently arrived? Please, no!”
Who is Ronald Hicks?
Like Pope Leo, a Chicago native who this year became the first American to lead the Catholic church, Hicks is from Illinois. He was born in 1967 in Harvey, Illinois, and grew up in South Holland, not far from the Chicago suburb where Leo lived as a child.
Also like Leo, who served as a missionary in Peru for 20 years, Hicks spent years working in Latin America, leading the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos organization that cares for orphans in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries for five years as a priest in El Salvador.
He met Leo in 2024 at one of Hick’s parishes, where the then-Cardinal Robert Prevost took questions in front of the public.
“Five minutes turned into 10 minutes and the 10 minutes turned into 15 and the 15 turned into 20,” Hicks told Chicago WGN-TV news about their first meeting following Leo’s May election as Pope. “We grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together. We played in the same parks, went swimming in the same pools, like the same pizza places.”
Hicks was a parish priest in Chicago and the dean of Mundelein Seminary. He was then made vicar general of the archdiocese in 2015 by the Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. In 2020, Pope Francis named him bishop of Joliet, Illinois, where he served roughly 520,000 Catholics in seven counties.
Hicks has been less vocal about politics than Dolan. But last month, he released a statement supporting a message released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) that pronounced its opposition to “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and said the bishops were “disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement.”
Hicks described the message, which highlighted immigrants’ “enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation,” as “powerful and unified.”
He again offered support for the message at the Thursday press conference, saying the U.S. should “be a country that upholds human dignity, respect, treating each other well, and making sure that anything connected to these policies are connected to due process.”
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