It's the Brian Lair show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC in Gothamist Newsroom, sitting in for Brian today.

Here's some news from the Vatican

that's important for the two and a half million Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is retiring and Pope Leo has appointed the next leader of the church

here in the Archdiocese that covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and several counties north of

the city. His name is Ronald Hicks, and he's a Midwesterner, just like Pope Leo. Some observers

have said his style and approach might also be similar to the new popes, and if that's true,

this will signal a big shift in leadership for New York's Catholics.

Here with me now to talk about both Cardinal Dolan's legacy and the new Archbishop is Daniel Rober,

an associate professor and the chair of the Catholic Studies Department at Sacred Heart University.

Hey, Professor Rober, welcome back to WNYC.

Great to be with you, Bridget.

And Professor, we're going to get to Cardinal Dolan's legacy in a few minutes, but first, can you tell us a little bit about this new Archbishop?

Ronald Hicks.

Is he originally from the Midwest and what kind of work has he done as a priest and a bishop?

Sure. So he grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, very close, as he said yesterday,

to where Pope Leo grew up. And he is somebody who really takes inspiration from a saint named Oscar Romero. And I'd like to center that a little bit as we

begin our conversation. So Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador in the late 1970s, who was

assassinated by the Salvadoran government, right-wing government, for his outspokenness and activism.

And he's somebody who was only canonized as a saint quite recently by Pope Francis after that

process was kind of blocked by various people in the Vatican. So he is somebody in the Salvadoran

church is something to which Bishop Hicks is quite devoted.

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