CHICAGO — Pope Leo XIV made his most important U.S. appointment to date Thursday, naming a fellow south suburbanite as the next archbishop of New York to lead one of the biggest archdioceses as it navigates relations with the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown.

Joliet Bishop Ronald Hicks will replace the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a prominent conservative figure in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy.

During a news conference in New York Thursday morning, Hicks noted he grew up in South Holland, which is right next to Dolton in the south suburbs.

“South Holland and Dolton might not mean anything to you, but Dolton is where our holy father, Pope Leo XIV, grew up and is from, and our houses are literally 14 blocks away from each other,” Hicks said.

Hicks will be installed as archbishop Feb. 6 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, according to the Joliet Diocese. Until then, he will continue serving as bishop of Joliet, where he has been since 2020.

“The past five years in Joliet have been a true blessing for me,” Hicks wrote in a statement. “The relationships we have built, the faith we have shared, and the journey we have walked together are treasures I will carry with me to New York.”

Hicks takes over after Dolan last week finalized a plan to establish a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had sued the archdiocese.

Dolan submitted his resignation in February, as required when he turned 75. But the Vatican often waits to make important leadership changes in dioceses if there is lingering abuse litigation or other governance matters that need to be resolved by the outgoing bishop.

Hicks thanked Dolan for his backing during Thursday’s news conference.

“He said to me, ‘Ron, I want you to do well here, and you have all my support,'” Hicks said.

A call for solidarity with immigrants

Like Leo, who spent 20 years as a missionary in Peru, Hicks worked for five years in El Salvador heading a church-run orphanage program that operated in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries.

“Taking a new position as archbishop of New York is an enormous responsibility, but I can honestly say that Bishop Hicks is up to the task,” said the Rev. Eusebius Martis, who has known Hicks since the mid-1980s and worked with him at Mundelein Seminary, the Chicago archdiocesan seminary.

He said New York was lucky to have him.

“He is a wonderful man, always thoughtful and attentive to the needs of seminarians,” Martis, professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’Anselmo, the Benedictine University in Rome, said in an email.

In November, Hicks endorsed a special message from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning the Trump administration’s immigration raids, which have targeted Chicago in particular.

In a statement then urging Catholics to share the message, Hicks said it “affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters as it expresses our concerns, opposition, and hopes with clarity and conviction. It is grounded in the church’s enduring commitment to the Catholic social teaching of human dignity and a call for meaningful immigration reform.”

Hicks reiterated his call Thursday for solidarity by invoking New York City’s history as a point of arrival for millions of immigrants, referencing Emma Lazarus’ famous poem about the Statue of Liberty, which concludes: “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

“I feel the hope that so many to our shores had that came through this very harbor here in New York, including my own family,” Hicks said. “I am committed to working with the great variety and diversity of faith leaders and civic leaders to keep that hope alive, and to make real the promise of the golden door.”

Neighboring hometowns

Though they both hail from the south suburbs, Hicks only met the future pope in 2024, when then-Cardinal Robert Prevost visited one of Hicks’ parishes in New Lenox and took part in a question-and-answer conversation for the public.

Hicks, who sat in the front pew, said he learned that day what sort of future pope Leo would be and said he liked what he saw both in his public remarks and in their private conversation.

“His talk was very clear and concise,” Hicks said Thursday. “Afterward he said, ‘Can I just get get five minutes with you?’ And that five minutes turned into about 20 minutes.”

Hicks said that he relates strongly to the pope, having grown up nearby.

“We would have played baseball in the same parks, gone swimming in the same public pool and we even share a famous pizza place that’s our favorite,” Hicks said.

The pope is famously a fan of Aurelio’s Pizza in Homewood, which has embraced the connection with pride, with a “Poperoni” pizza and a Pope Leo XIV table.

But unlike Pope Leo, a devoted White Sox fan, Hicks shared in New York Thursday what he called his first “controversial statement.”

“I’m a Cubs fan, and I love deep-dish pizza,” Hicks said. “I am going to remain a loyal Cubs fan. However, I am going to start rooting for the New York sports teams.”

Hicks was a parish priest in Chicago and dean of training at Mundelein Seminary before Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich made him vicar general of the archdiocese in 2015. Three years later, Hicks was made an auxiliary bishop, and in 2020 Pope Francis named him bishop of Joliet, serving about 520,000 Catholics in seven counties.

“I was formed in Chicago in the Archdiocese of Chicago, under the care of Cardinal (Joseph) Bernardin, through the witness of Cardinal (Francis) George and by the mentorship of Cardinal Cupich,” Hicks said. “For all them, I’m deeply grateful.”

Cupich, seen as a progressive in the U.S. church, has been a close adviser to both Francis and Leo, and Hicks’ appointment to such a prominent job likely could not have come without Cupich’s endorsement.

“Archbishop Hicks is a holy man with a heart for Jesus and the People of God,” Cupich said in a statement. “He will embrace the diversity of his new archdiocese and be an adept administrator.”

The New York Archdiocese is among the largest in the nation, serving roughly 2.5 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City, as well as seven counties to the north.

Overseeing abuse settlements

In one of his biggest initial tasks, Hicks will have to oversee the implementation of the abuse settlement fund that Dolan finalized, which is to be paid for by reducing the archdiocesan budget and selling off assets. The aim is to cover settlements for most, if not all of the roughly 1,300 outstanding abuse claims against the archdiocese.

“As a church, we can never rest in our efforts to prevent abuse, to protect children and to care for survivors,” Hicks said. “While this work is challenging, it’s difficult, it’s painful, I hope it will continue to help in the areas of accountability, transparency and healing.”

Hicks is no stranger to managing the fallout of the abuse scandal, after the Joliet Diocese under his predecessors and the rest of the Illinois church came under scathing criticism by the state’s attorney general in 2023.

A five-year investigation found that 451 Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019. Hicks had been appointed to lead the Joliet church in 2020. The attorney general’s report was generally positive in recognizing the diocese’s current child protection policies, but documented several cases where previous Joliet bishops moved known abusers around, disparaged victims and refused to accept responsibility for their role in enabling the abuse.

Following the publication of the 2023 report, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized Hicks, saying he lacked transparency. The organization said he should have notified the public and parishes when the Joliet Diocese’s public list of priests credibly accused of sexual assault was added to, and called on him to add additional names of accused priests.

“Bishop Hicks is unfit to oversee the settlement of abuse claims in New York,” the survivors network said in a statement following Thursday’s announcement. “Survivors do not trust him, and for good reason. His record of stonewalling, secrecy, and betrayal is the kind of behavior that has kept the Catholic abuse crisis going for decades.”

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