NEW YORK (WABC) — Timothy Cardinal Dolan will hold his final Christmas midnight mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral tonight.
This comes after Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, as the next Archbishop of New York following Dolan’s retirement.
Mayor Eric Adams is expected to attend the Christmas Eve midnight mass.
Tickets for the mass were distributed through a lottery.
The other masses at St. Patrick’s today are open to the public, including the church’s regular mass schedule and Christmas Eve family mass.
Last week, the big announcement was made that Bishop Hicks was going to be the new Archbishop of New York
Cardinal Dolan turned 75 earlier this year, the Catholic Church’s mandatory retirement age
He submitted his retirement request to the Vatican after serving New York for the last 16 years.
Dolan has publicly said he would like to stay in New York to continue serving the Catholic Church: “I even got a request to write a book. I even got an offer to do a documentary on the status of the Church in the United States. So things come in, you know … I’m going to kind of appreciate the chance to set my own schedule.”
Cardinal Dolan called the appointment of his successor “an early Christmas gift.”
Now, Archbishop-designate Ronald Hicks will lead the 2.8 million Catholics who make up the Archdiocese of New York.
Hicks will become the 14th bishop and 11th archbishop of the See of New York, with his official installation slated for February.
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