Ronald Hicks
Ronald Aldon Hicks was born on August 4, 1967, in Harvey, Illinois, and ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 21, 1994. From 2005 to 2010 he lived in El Salvador, directing a network of orphanages for abandoned children across Latin America - the chapter of his life most often cited for his missionary spirit. Returning to Chicago, he served as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary and then as vicar general under Cardinal Blase Cupich, who ordained him an auxiliary bishop on September 17, 2018.
Pope Francis named him Bishop of Joliet on July 17, 2020, and he was installed that September. In Joliet he led a major reorganization of parishes and the chancery amid declining attendance and finances, and applied Traditionis Custodes with a notably pastoral, low-key hand, allowing the diocese's Latin Mass communities to continue rather than aggressively restricting them - a record different from the one his formation under Cupich led some to expect.
On December 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV appointed him the eleventh Archbishop of New York, succeeding the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and he was installed at St. Patrick's Cathedral on February 6, 2026. 'A missionary church, not a country club,' he preached at his installation - a club exists to serve its members, while the Church exists to go out and serve all people. He arrives at the premier American see with New York's old-Mass communities watching his Joliet record for a sign.
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.