Pope Leo XIV names Bishop Ronald Hicks as new archbishop of New York

Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News on Dec 18, 2025

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Pope Leo XIV has announced fellow Chicagoan, Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Ill., will serve as the next archbishop of New York, replacing Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has led the state’s 2.8 million Catholics for more than 15 years.

“I am grateful to Pope Leo for appointing such a splendid priest and bishop to serve you, and have pledged to the archbishop-designate my fidelity and full cooperation, as he will now be my archbishop as well,” Dolan said in a written message.

Dolan had submitted his offer to resign back in February, as is required of all bishops once they turn 75.

Hicks was named as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Joliet by the late Pope Francis in 2020 — serving around 520,000 Catholics in seven counties — and he will continue to serve there until his installation in New York.

“I have been deeply blessed to serve the people of the Diocese of Joliet,” Bishop Hicks said. “I will carry the faith, generosity, and the spirit of this diocese with me as I begin this new chapter of ministry.”

Hicks has also served as a parish priest in Chicago and dean of training at Mundelein Seminar. In 2015, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich made him vicar general of the archdiocese, then auxiliary bishop a few years later.

Like Pope Leo, who spent 20 years as a missionary in Peru, Hicks also worked for five years in El Salvador as head of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, a church-run orphanage program that operated in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries. And his similarities with the Pontiff don’t stop there. In fact, Hicks has said he can personally relate to the pope, as he was born in Harvey, Illinois, south of Chicago, near where Leo grew up in Dolton.

“I recognize a lot of similarities between him and me. So we grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together,” Hicks told Chicago tv station WG9 earlier this year. “We played in the same parks, went swimming in the same pools, liked the same pizza places to go to. I mean, it’s that real.”