A special Christmas gift to America from Pope Leo: I am going to rebuild the church

He was beloved in Joliet

The choice had been widely anticipated and desired by New York Catholics: A new leader who will bring a major change in style and substance to the archdiocese that has been racked by controversy over the past 16 years.

Pope Leo XIV appointed a person who is very similar to him in every way and is a harbinger of a tremendous change to the American church that he hopes to bring to the American church, one that has suffered from a lack of leadership in the wake of the devastating sexual abuse scandals under previous popes John Paul II and Benedict.

Bishop Ronald A. Hicks

Bishop Hicks will bring a sea change to the second largest diocese in the U.S., and he comes from the pope’s native roots,

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday named an Illinois bishop to replace the powerful conservative Cardinal Timothy Dolan as leader of New York’s Roman Catholic archdiocese, a selection that signals his embrace of a more mild and unifying style …

The naming of Bishop Ronald A. Hicks to be the next Roman Catholic archbishop of New York is one of the most anticipated decisions of Pope Leo’s young papacy, his first major move indicating the direction he wants the church to take in his home country. Bishop Hicks is scheduled to be installed as archbishop on Feb. 6 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Soft-spoken and steady, Bishop Hicks, 58, has led the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., since Pope Francis appointed him in 2020. The bishop has largely avoided outspoken politics, unlike Cardinal Dolan …

Elizabeth Dias and Maya King, “Pope Leo Names Illinois Bishop to Replace

Cardinal Dolan in New York,” New York Times, Dec. 18, 2025

The wrath of Dolan

Dolan has been condemned by many American Catholics particularly for his embrace of political policies that are antithetical to the church. His embrace of the current president has been widely criticized by the new pope as being in oppotision to the church’s fundamental teachings.

In November, he made clear the Catholic position on immigration and other policies that were directly in opposition to Trump and his followers,

Pope Leo XIV called for “deep reflection” in the United States about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that “many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now.”

The Chicago-born pope was responding Tuesday to a range of geopolitical questions from reporters outside the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, including what kind of spiritual rights migrants in U.S. custody should have, U.S. military attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.

Leo underlined that Scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world: “How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made about what is happening.”

He said “the spiritual rights of people who have been detained should also be considered,’’ and he called on authorities to allow pastoral workers access to the detained migrants.

“Many times they’ve been separated from their families. No one knows what’s happening, but their own spiritual needs should be attended to,” Leo said.

Associated Press: “Pope Leo calls for ‘deep reflection’ about

treatment of detained migrants in U.S.,” Nov. 5, 2025

The elevation of Bishop Hicks is the first step in the right direction.

Bishop’s statement on immigration

The bishop was head of a diocese in Joliet, Illinois, a very small one. His move to New York will be a very symbolic change that Leo will bring to the U.S., which is important at this time of year of year since Jesus Christ and his parents, Joseph and Mary, were migrants,

The change in leadership also comes as the church is speaking out vocally in support of immigrants under deportation threat.

At a news conference at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Thursday morning, Bishop Hicks said he was proud of the Catholic bishops’ recent statement rebuking the Trump administration’s deportation campaign. The United States, he said, should “be a country that upholds human dignity, respect, treating each other well and making sure that anything connected to these policies are connected to due process.”

New York, which is home to one of the nation’s largest immigrant populations, has contended with a marked increase in immigration enforcement activity, and parts of the city have been scouted as possible detention centers. Though houses of worship have long been considered off limits for immigration enforcement, clergy have been under outsize pressure to protect their congregations. Catholic leaders have been particularly critical of the Trump administration’s crackdowns.

Elizabeth Dias and Maya King, New York Times, Dec. 18, 2025

Pope Leo is standing up to the American church is a way that the late Pope Francis was reluctant to do. He wanted to be a shepherd and not condemn the American hierarchy, though he disagreed with him.

Now, Leo is demonstrating that the wrath of Dolan is dead.

A new spirit will prevail in America, and perhaps it will start to fill the pews again, though that will be difficult with the people departing the church in droves.

Dolan's removal was first priority for many Catholics

In his widely read piece, Robert Mickens' “Letter from Rome,” he made clear the major priority for the new pope was ridding America of Timothy Dolan,

Time to replace Cardinal Dolan

It's likely the pope will allow 76-year-old Cardinal Blaise Cupich, who is known to be one of his greatest supporters, to stay a few more years in Chicago, the city where Leo was born and raised.

But many are watching to see what the pope does with Timothy Dolan of New York. The gregarious cardinal, who only recently turned 75, was – from the very start – a ringleader of the USCCB's resistance to the late Pope Francis. And not only that.

Dolan has also been – and continues to be – the US Catholic Church's friendliest face vis-a-vie Donald Trump. While the cardinal has never missed an opportunity to laud the contribution that immigrants have made (and even continue to make) to the United States, he has been extremely careful not to publicly criticize the Trump administration's legally questionable policies and inhumane treatment of immigrants.

In fact, Dolan has gone out of his way to praise Trump, even claiming that the US president "takes his Christian faith seriously". That's an odd thing for a Catholic priest to say for several reasons. But certainly, none more than the fact that he's talking about a man who recently boasted on national television that he's never felt the need to ask forgiveness from God.

There is no record of how Dolan voted last November, but his words and actions leading up to the election certainly signaled tacit support, at least, for the Trump/Vance ticket. But so did the behavior of many other bishops in the United States. The most disturbing thing was the complicit and cowardly silence they displayed. There is a US tradition that religious leaders do not endorse political candidates (that is also because they risk forfeiting their group's tax-free status if they do). But this has more to do with refraining from commenting on the policies and promises that candidates put forward.

Cardinal Dolan and many other bishops admitted in a few honest moments that they wanted to keep open channels of friendly conversation with Trump in order not to antagonize him. They feared that he might punish entities like "our beloved Catholic schools" in the event of his being elected.

Robert Mickens, “The American Pope and a US hierarchy that opposed his predecessor,” Letter from Rome, May 2025

The numbers show the challenge for Pope Leo

American Catholics are supposed to attend weekly mass. That is not the case, as AI now shows,

A significant portion of American Catholics don't attend Mass weekly, with recent surveys showing around 30-40% going weekly, while many others attend a few times a year or less, citing reasons like busy schedules, conflicting activities (sports), not feeling it's a sin, or preferring private practice, though younger Catholics show varied attendance and even some younger groups attend more frequently. This decline contrasts with past decades, impacting the overall number of attendees despite a growing Catholic population. 

• Weekly Attendance: Around 29-31% of U.S. Catholics attend Mass weekly or more often, according to recent polls.

• Infrequent Attendance: A large segment (around 40-50%) attends only a few times a year or not at all.

• Generational Differences: Younger Catholics (under 40) tend to attend more frequently than older generations in some surveys, though many young adults still attend rarely. 

Many have been outraged at the secual abuse and the coverup by the conservative American hierarchy. Like Law in Boston and the bishops in my native diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Merry Christmas, Pope Leo!