Pope Leo XIV is expected to accept Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s resignation this week — and will possibly name a bishop from the pontiff’s Illinois home state to lead the Archdiocese of New York, well-placed sources said.
Dolan, who has served as archbishop since 2009, submitted his resignation in February after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.
Insiders said the Holy Father is now set to accept the resignation, and that he is considering naming Bishop Ron Hicks, of Joliet, Ill., near the pope’s Windy City hometown, to replace Dolan.
Diocese of Jolliet
“It’s in the works for this week, I’m told,” said Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive who has long-standing ties to Dolan and the archdiocese. “It’s going to happen. It’s a question of when.”
Astorino — who launched “The Catholic Channel” on Sirius XM, co-hosted a show with Dolan and had his daughter baptized by the cardinal — also posted the report on X this week.
“Strong rumors that @Pontifex has accepted the resignation of @CardinalDolan and will appoint Bishop Ron Hicks of Joliet, Illinois,” he wrote Monday.
Other sources in the Catholic Church confirmed the coming changing of the guard.
Officials at the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Joliet did not return requests for comment.
Hicks, 58, serves in the Diocese of Joliet in Illinois, while Pope Leo, born Robert Prevost, hails from the South Side of Chicago.
Prevost, a Villanova University grad, in May became the first American pontiff in the church’s 2,000-year history, and was selected by the College of Cardinals following the death of Pope Francis.
“He doesn’t seem like some figure or theory out there,” Hicks told WGN-TV News in Chicago after the new pope was announced. “But he’s a normal guy from a normal neighborhood we grew up in. For me, it makes him so relatable.”
Hicks grew up in South Holland, Ill., and was named the sixth bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Joliet by Pope Francis in July 2020 before being installed at the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus two months later, according to his Joliet diocese bio page.
The change in leadership in New York comes as the archdiocese is scrambling to raise $300 million to settle 1,300 claims of child sex abuse by priests and Catholic Church lay staffers.
That has forced church officials to tighten their belts and cut costs, including by selling real estate, laying off staff and reducing the operating budget at the archdiocese by 10% to reach the target amount.
