Is a Chicago-area bishop going to be the next Catholic archbishop of New York?
That’s what’s being reported by a number of religious-oriented news sources, including the Catholic News Agency, that Ronald Hicks, the current bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, is being appointed by Pope Leo XIV to oversee the Archdiocese of New York, taking over for the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
If the appointment turns out to be real, Cardinal Blase Cupich’s fingerprints would be all over it, as Cupich, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, has been part of the Vatican’s influential bishop-vetting committee, and has been serving as something of a mentor to Hicks.
Besides, Hicks hails from the south suburbs, as does Pope Leo, (real name Robert Prevost), who grew up in Dolton.
Neither Hicks’ office, Dolan’s spokesman nor the Vatican — the worldwide headquarters of the church where the pope is based — immediately responded to calls or emails.
Hicks’ predecessor in Joliet, Bishop Daniel Conlon, told the Chicago Sun-Times:
“I’ve heard the rumor but . . . I haven’t seen the official notification.”
The Vatican rumor mill is notorious, and it’s often wrong — as Cupich himself was repeatedly mentioned for higher posts in the church bureaucracy that never materialized.
Another name that surfaced in recent months was that of Bishop Bob Lombardo, an auxiliary bishop and Franciscan priest in Chicago who’s perhaps best known for helping to reopen the Our Lady of the Angels Parish — ravaged by a deadly fire in 1958 — as a mission in 2012 under Cupich’s predecessor Cardinal Francis George.
Lombardo has deep ties to the New York area, with his online biography saying: “As a young religious, he did missionary work in Bolivia and Honduras with orphaned street kids, organized youth programs on Manhattan’s lower east side, and directed the Padre Pio Shelter for the Homeless in the Bronx.”
The Catholic Herald newspaper reported in October: “Vatican insiders believe that Robert Joseph Lombardo C.F.R., auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is being strongly considered to become either the next Archbishop of New York or the next Archbishop of Chicago.”
A bishop who knows Lombardo and Hicks said: “They’re both good men . . . frankly, I think Ron would be better in Chicago.”
Like Dolan, Cupich has also reached retirement age, though both men remain in office. They serve at the pleasure of the pope, who formally makes bishop appointments.
Hicks, 58, was born in Harvey and grew up in South Holland.
He was ordained a priest in 1994 and served at a number of Chicago-area parishes and assignments before Cupich named him vicar general of the Chicago archdiocese — the arm of the church for Cook and Lake counties — in 2015.
Three years later Pope Francis named Hicks an auxiliary bishop under Cupich, and in 2020 Hicks became a bishop for the Joliet diocese, the arm of the church for DuPage, Kendall and Will counties, among other areas downstate.
Dolan’s operation just recently announced that it was setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve legal claims over child sex abuse by clergy — as part of a decades-long crisis afflicting the church in the U.S. and around the globe.
As the Chicago Sun-Times has reported, transparency in the New York archdiocese over the scope of the scandal has been lacking. While it maintains an online sex offender registry for credibly accused priests, the list only includes the names of priests who directly reported to Dolan or his predecessors, not members of religious orders who ever lived or served in that jurisdiction.
Cupich and Hicks include “diocesan” priests and religious orders on their public listings — though neither men have answered how much money their organizations have paid out in response to clergy sex abuse claims.
Hicks has been presiding over closures and consolidations of parishes in the Joliet diocese and while the reasoning given was financial, in part, he’s tried to publicly separate the untold millions of dollars paid out to resolve claims over the last two decades and the millions of dollars needed to keep some parishes afloat.
A number of clerics with Chicago ties have seen their profile rise in the church in recent years, including Robert Barron, a former Chicago priest, being appointed a bishop in Minnesota; Michael McGovern, a former Chicago priest, becoming archbishop of Omaha; and Jeffrey Grob, a former Chicago priest, becoming archbishop of Milwaukee.