Pope Leo has appointed Chicago-born Ronald A. Hicks, the bishop of Joliet, as the 11th archbishop of New York. He will be installed as archbishop in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Feb. 6, 2026, an informed source told America.
Bishop Hicks, 58, succeeds Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who has served as the archbishop of New York since February 2009. Cardinal Dolan turned 75 last February—the official retirement age when bishops are obliged to send their letter of resignation to Rome.
In naming Bishop Hicks for this high-profile post, Pope Leo chose a man whom he already knew; they met in 2024 when the then-Cardinal Robert Prevost gave a talk at a parish in the Joliet diocese, which Bishop Hicks attended. Afterward, as he told WGN News after Leo’s election, they talked together for some 20 minutes about Pope Francis, the universal church and work in his diocese, and learned that they had much in common. “We grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together,” Bishop Hicks said. “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.”
They both found their vocation early in life and worked as missionaries in Latin America. But they are on opposite sides when it comes to the baseball team they root for. “[Pope Leo] is and always will be a Sox fan. And, I grew up a Cub fan,” Bishop Hicks told WGN.
Although cardinals are often allowed to remain in office longer, Leo, now in his seventh month as pope, accepted Cardinal Dolan’s resignation after less than a year. The handover will take place on the cardinal’s 76th birthday.
Timothy Dolan was named the 10th archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI and was installed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on April 15, 2009. Benedict then made him a cardinal in 2012. Cardinal Dolan, a staunch advocate for Catholic education, led the archdiocese through a series of school and parish closures and mergers in response to declining attendance and fewer priests. He also oversaw a $200 million restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral from 2015-16. The cardinal commissioned a 25-foot-high mural celebrating New York’s immigrant history—the largest permanent artwork in the cathedral’s 146-year history—which was unveiled in September of this year.
During the cardinal’s 16-year period as archbishop of New York, the archdiocese, like so many around the globe, has been mired in the clergy sex abuse scandal. Earlier this month, Cardinal Dolan announced that the Archdiocese of New York would be entering into mediation and taking steps to raise more than $300 million for sexual abuse settlements. Sources in Rome say that the establishment of the framework for these settlements, and its announcement, paved the way for the naming of a successor for Cardinal Dolan.
While Cardinal Dolan welcomed Pope Francis to New York and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 2015, he sometimes appeared ill at ease with the leadership and agenda of the first Latin American pope, and not infrequently took stances that seemed at odds with Francis.
When asked before the conclave that elected Leo what he was looking for in the next pope, New York’s politically savvy cardinal said: “I’d love to see someone with the vigour and conviction and the fortitude of John Paul II, I would love to see somebody with the intellectual wattage of a Pope Benedict, I’d love to see somebody with the heart of a Pope Francis.”
What do we know about Dolan’s successor?
Born in Harvey, Ill., on Aug. 4, 1967, the elder of two sons, to a Catholic father and Lutheran mother, Ronald Aldon Hicks grew up in South Holland, a suburb of Chicago, where he attended St. Jude the Apostle parish and grade school. After graduating from Quigley High School (a minor seminary for the Archdiocese of Chicago which has since closed) in 1985, where he began thinking about the priesthood, he went on to study at Loyola University Chicago, where he graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1989 and the conviction that God was calling him to be a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
He also felt the need to learn Spanish as a priest. At the recommendation of his seminary rector, he went to Mexico to learn the language while working with the Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (“Our little brothers and sisters”) mission, part of a wider project that cares for orphaned and abandoned children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Seeing the unconditional love at that home for children deeply impressed him and confirmed his vocation.
After returning to Chicago, he earned a master of divinity degree in 1994 from the University of St. Mary of the Lake and was ordained a priest that same year by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. He worked in parish ministry in the archdiocese for the next five years. In 1999, he was appointed as dean of formation at St. Joseph College Seminary in Chicago by Cardinal Francis George. While there, he obtained a doctor of ministry degree in 2003 from St. Mary of the Lake.
He moved to El Salvador in 2005, with the permission of Cardinal George, to work for five years as regional director of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, a ministry that provides safe living environments, education, health care and vocational and life skills training to young people across Latin America.
“I enjoyed every minute of it. It was a direct experience with the poor, with kids whose lives were changed for the better because of a collaboration with good people and following a solid mission. I’ve left part of my heart there still,” he said.
Cardinal George appointed Father Hicks as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary upon the latter’s return to Chicago in 2010.
Father Hicks’s life changed dramatically on Jan. 1, 2015, when Chicago’s new archbishop, Blase Cupich, recognizing his leadership skills, appointed him as vicar general for the archdiocese. As he bade farewell to the seminarians at Mundelein before taking up his new post, he told them how much he “loved being a priest,” the Rev. Mark Berhard, a priest of the Joliet diocese who was then a seminarian, recalled. “I always saw him as a man who loved Jesus and desired to make disciples,” he added.
On June 3, 2018, Pope Francis named him an auxiliary bishop of Chicago, and Cardinal Cupich ordained him bishop in the Holy Name Cathedral the following September while retaining him as vicar general.
He continued to hold that post until July 17, 2020, when Pope Francis appointed him as the sixth bishop of Joliet, a smaller diocese adjacent to Chicago. He was installed as bishop at the end of September of that year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with a greatly reduced congregation.
The motto on his episcopal coat of arms is in Spanish, “Paz y Bien,” words attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Among the symbols on this coat of arms, there is a red heart at the top of the coat that expresses his love for his missionary service with the children in Latin America and with the people in the parishes he served.
Following Pope Francis’ death, Bishop Hicks revealed that the Argentine pope “has influenced me extraordinarily throughout my priesthood and my becoming a bishop.” He met him three times, he said, and experienced “the love and joy that exuded from him.”
Bishop Hicks is considered both a good listener and preacher, very pastoral and compassionate, with a special place in his heart for the poor, former parishioners and priests who know him told Faith Magazine.
“One of the things I’ve learned along the way is to look for ways of saying ‘yes,’ saying ‘yes’ to the Lord.” Bishop Hicks said after being named bishop of Joliet, “One of the images I use is if we are asked to do something for God or the Church it just may be the Holy Spirit whispering in our ears. We should try if we can to look for the ways to say yes instead of ‘no.’ So, I said, ‘yes.’”
He added, “I have a heart full of trust and peace. I’ve come to believe that God has a plan. Things are not coincidence. There is providential love, and oftentimes we’re not aware of it. I’ve learned to come to trust in God’s goodness and providence for us.”
Furthermore, Bishop Hicks said: “I love Jesus. As a baptized Catholic, I want to continue to evangelize and to make sure that the faith is growing. It’s not only growing for a certain segment, but for everyone — for young people, for the elderly, for those of us who may be in the middle. Jesus should be the center of our lives, and I’m very excited about looking for ways to bring Christ and God to the center.”
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