Ronald Hicks
Ronald Aldon Hicks was born in 1967 in Harvey, Illinois, and ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1994. He spent 2005–2010 in El Salvador directing a network of orphanages, then returned to serve as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary and, under Cardinal Cupich, as vicar general of Chicago.
Ordained an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 2018, he was named Bishop of Joliet in 2020. On December 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV appointed him the eleventh Archbishop of New York, succeeding the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan; he was installed at St. Patrick's Cathedral in February 2026.
Archbishop Hicks comes to New York from the Chicago school of Cardinal Cupich — his vicar general, his protégé — and that lineage gives traditional Catholics reason for caution. Yet his own record, such as it is, cuts the other way. In the Diocese of Joliet he is reported to have applied Traditionis Custodes with a notably pastoral, low-key hand, allowing the Traditional Latin Mass to continue rather than aggressively restricting it; one grateful layman thanked him publicly for 'shielding his flock from the draconian measures' of the decree. We note, in fairness, that this favorable read rests largely on lay testimony and administrative restraint, not on any declared statement of his own about the old rite.
Of New York it is simply too early to speak. He was installed only in early 2026, and no action toward the Traditional Latin Mass — for good or ill — has yet been reported. He inherits the provisions Cardinal Dolan left in place; whether he keeps, eases, or tightens them, no one yet knows.
A mixed record, then, and an open question. The instincts shown in Joliet were gentle; the formation that shaped him was not friendly to the old Mass; and the great see he now governs has not yet felt his hand. The traditional Catholic of New York watches, and prays, and waits.