BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV to appoint next archbishop of New York

Bishop Ronald A. Hicks of Joliet, Illinois. / Credit: Diocese of Joliet YouTube video

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2025 / 09:58 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has chosen Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, to be the next archbishop of New York — the most consequential U.S. episcopal appointment of Leo’s pontificate thus far.

The appointment was confirmed by EWTN News with two independent sources with direct knowledge of the appointment.

Hicks, 58, will succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has led New York, the second-largest U.S. archdiocese by population — with 2.5 million Catholics — since 2009.

The choice of Hicks for one of the most important U.S. archdioceses is likely to be heavily scrutinized for the insight it may give into the direction Pope Leo wishes to take the Church in the U.S.

A native of Illinois, Hicks has led the Joliet Diocese since September 2020. He was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago from 2018 to 2020, following three years as the archdiocese’s vicar general from 2015 to 2018.

Hicks was born on Aug. 4, 1967, in the town of Harvey, Illinois, south of Chicago, and grew up in South Holland, one suburb over from Dolton, where Pope Leo XIV grew up.

“I recognize a lot of similarities between [Pope Leo] and me,” Hicks told WGN in an interview in May. “So 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, liked the same pizza places to go to.”

Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1994, Hicks’ priestly ministry included time as an associate pastor and pastor, and dean of formation as St. Joseph College Seminary.

In 2005, he began a five-year term as regional director of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in Central America. Based in El Salvador, he oversaw the care of more than 3,400 orphaned and abandoned children in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries.

He returned to Chicago in 2010 to serve as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary before Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago appointed him vicar general of the archdiocese on Jan. 1, 2015.

As bishop, Hicks serves on the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations for the U.S. bishops’ conference, and as the conference liaison to the Association of Ongoing Formation of Priests and the National Association of Diaconate Directors.

The Archdiocese of New York serves Catholics in the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, and in seven counties to the north.