The Vatican formally accepted Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s resignation and announced Bishop Ronald A. Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, as the new archbishop of New York on December 18, 2025. This was published in the Holy See’s official bulletin and confirmed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, marking a clear and public transition in one of the most visible sees in America. Conservatives should take note: this is not a routine local change, it is a signal from the Vatican that will ripple across American public life.
Cardinal Dolan submitted the resignation he was required to offer upon turning 75, leaving behind a long and often courageous career defending religious liberty and conservative values in the public square. During his tenure Dolan navigated immense challenges in New York, including arranging a multi-hundred-million dollar compensation plan for abuse survivors while making difficult budget decisions for the archdiocese’s future. His stewardship mattered — he was a public voice for traditional faith and commonsense moral teaching at a time when such voices are increasingly marginalized.
Bishop Ronald Hicks arrives in New York with a very different resume and pastoral emphasis: a 58-year-old Midwesterner with long experience in Latin America, fluency in Spanish, and a history of social-justice-oriented ministry and administrative roles in Chicago and Joliet. Vatican reporting and diocesan records paint Hicks as a pastor who prioritizes outreach to immigrants and healing for victims of abuse, credentials the Vatican clearly valued in this choice for the nation’s second-largest archdiocese. For conservatives who prize clear doctrinal leadership, this appointment raises questions about future emphases in pastoral priorities and public witness.
This handoff looks like more than mere personnel management; it reads as a continuation of Pope Leo XIV’s direction for the U.S. Church, favoring pastors with a strong social-justice and immigrant-focused profile over the more combative, culture-war posture that Cardinal Dolan often inhabited. Commentators from multiple outlets have framed Hicks’s appointment as a nudge toward a different tone and policy emphasis in America’s Catholic leadership — a development conservatives should watch closely as cultural and political battles continue to intersect with church life. The faithful deserve pastors who will protect children and parish life, but they also deserve clarity about doctrinal convictions in a city that sets the tone for the nation.
Cardinal Dolan himself displayed graciousness in the transfer, publicly welcoming his successor and blessing the Archdiocese of New York even as he steps back from daily governance. That civility is honorable and reflects Dolan’s pastoral heart, but it should not distract from the fact that millions of New Yorkers who relied on Dolan’s steadiness now face a new leadership style and likely new emphases. Conservatives who supported Dolan’s unapologetic defense of life, religious liberty, and tradition must be prepared to advocate for those principles in the public square and inside the Church.
Now is not the time for resignation or retreat. Faithful Americans must remain engaged with their parishes, support survivors of abuse with compassion, and insist that bishops teach the fullness of Catholic doctrine without yielding the pulpit to purely political or ideological fashions. The Church in America will be tested in coming months; patriots who love their country and the faith must stand ready to defend both.
