OAN Staff Cory Hawkins and Katherine Mosack
12:24 PM – Friday, December 19, 2025
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, as the next archbishop of New York following the formal resignation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
58-year-old Hicks will succeed Dolan, who led the archdiocese since 2009. He will become the fourteenth bishop and the eleventh archbishop to lead the Archdiocese of New York.
Dolan sent in his mandatory letter of retirement on his 75th birthday back in February.
The former archbishop will oversee the archdiocese as apostolic administrator until Hicks formally takes office next February at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
“I just want to continue to evangelize and to make sure that the faith is growing and not only growing for a certain segment, but everyone,” Hicks said.
He spent five years in El Salvador running a home that cared for children in need.
“It was founded by Catholic priests in 1954 and has cared for over 20,000 orphaned and abandoned children throughout the years,” Hicks said of the home. “It was a beautiful mission. I was really happy to do that.”
Hicks has big shoes to fill as he will transfer from one of the smallest dioceses to the largest in New York.
“New York is in energy, languages, cultures and people. As excited as I am to get to know the city and the archdiocese and all who call this home, I’m also very aware that these are complex and challenging days, especially as we face issues of life, faith, justice, peace, and healing,” he told reporters.
“I am looking forward to working with the great variety and diversity of faith leaders and civic leaders to keep that hope alive and to make the real the promise of the ‘golden door’ by acting in mutual respect and working to uphold human dignity,” he added.
The “golden door” concept symbolizes the American promise of freedom, welcome and opportunity, originating from Emma Lazarus’s poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It can also represent the entrance to the Kingdom of God in Christianity.
Hicks is considered more left-leaning than Cardinal Dolan, which could cause an ideological shift for some New York Catholics.
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