Bishops Call On Notre Dame To Rescind Pro-Abortion Professor’s Appointment To Leadership
The appointment is merely the latest attack on the Catholic identity of Notre Dame in recent years.The appointment is merely the latest attack on the Catholic identity of Notre Dame in recent years.New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan resigns; pope appoints his replacement
Per the resignation norms revised by the late Pope Francis in 2014, Cardinal Timothy Dolan was obligated to present his letter of resignation from the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of New York upon reaching the age of 75.
Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., confirmed on Thursday that Pope Leo XIV has accepted Dolan's resignation and appointed fellow Illinoisan Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Diocese of Joliet to take over the 4,683 square-mile archdiocese that serves over 1.5 million Catholics.
Cardinal Dolan — who has served as archbishop of New York since his appointment by the late Pope Benedict XVI in February 2009 — will continue to serve as the apostolic administrator until the installation of his 58-year-old replacement at Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Feb. 6, 2026.
'Running the New York archdiocese is a daunting task.'
Archbishop-designate Hicks, a native of Harvey, Illinois, will be the 14th bishop and 11th archbishop of the See of New York.
In addition to his time as bishop of Joliet, Hicks previously served in El Salvador as the regional director of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, a home dedicated to caring for thousands of orphaned and abandoned children in various Latin American and Caribbean countries; dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary; vicar general of the Archdiocese of Chicago; and auxiliary bishop of Chicago.
Hicks is no stranger to the pope, having spoken with him at length just last year.
After Pope Leo's election, Hicks sung the Chicago native's praises and told WGN-TV, "I recognize a lot of similarities between him and me. So we grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together."
RELATED: Packed churches, skyrocketing conversions: Is New York undergoing a Catholic renaissance?
Rev. David Boettner, one of Hicks' former classmates at Mundelein Seminary, told Faith magazine in 2020, "As a seminarian and as a priest, he has always had a deep love of people and a generosity of his time to serve the needs of others."
"He has always lived his promise of obedience to the Church, and his first answer when asked to serve is almost always yes," added Boettner.
Rev. James Presta, a priest who worked with Hicks at Mundelein and at St. Joseph College Seminary, said, "He has been a mentor to young priests. He offers them fraternal support and sound, practical wisdom as a brother priest."
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, stressed that Cardinal Dolan will be missed.
"He is a very special man. He always fought for justice, and his amiable character won the applause of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. He was certainly very kind to me," Donohue said in a statement. "His fairness never stood in the way of being outspoken about contemporary issues. He was not tied to the politics of the left or the right."
While tethered neither to the left nor the right, Dolan called on Catholics to "be very active, very informed, and very involved in politics"; criticized the perverse secular culture that "seems to discover new rights every day"; championed religious liberty; and defended Christian morality, especially as it pertains to marriage and the rights of the unborn.
"Running the New York archdiocese is a daunting task, but it is one that suits the new archbishop," noted Donohue. "Archbishop Ronald Hicks is young and vibrant and will be able to put his considerable administrative experience to good use. We look forward to working with him."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!What’s Driving The U.S. Marriage Annulment Crisis In The Catholic Church
Catholic spouses striving to honor their vows find little support from a church that seems to have adopted a U.S. divorce culture mentality.Nativity hijacked by woke priest — archbishop sends thoughts and prayers
Instead of the usual Nativity scene this time of year, St. Susanna Catholic Church in Dedham, Massachusetts, featured something far less Christmasy: a sign reading “ICE was here.” Rather than celebrate the joy of the Incarnation, the pastor, Fr. Stephen Josoma, wanted to suggest that Jesus and His family had been abducted by federal agents and couldn’t make it to Bethlehem.
To be fair, this year’s stunt was tame compared with the church’s 2018 display, when the infant Jesus appeared — in a cage. Back then, the leftist narrative insisted that Trump’s “goons” were snatching innocent immigrant families and throwing their kids in cages while deporting the parents.
Fr. Josoma is at least forthright. The pro-immigration bishops, by contrast, wrap their open-borders stance in warm, fuzzy language about ‘compassion’ and ‘Christian charity.’
When complaints poured in, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston offered mild disapproval and asked that the display be removed. One wonders what he would do if a priest used the Nativity to condemn transgenderism — perhaps a bubble of Mary saying, “It’s a boy!” and baby Jesus responding, “Of course I am.” Would the archbishop quietly distance himself again, or would he move to defrock the priest by morning?
The bishops’ real position
By now, it’s no secret that many Catholic bishops share Fr. Josoma’s immigration politics. Their public statements this year made that obvious: endless denunciations of border enforcement and deportations and near-total silence on the humanitarian crises created by Biden’s failed border policies — including the disappearance of some 400,000 migrant children, many of whom ended up in forced labor and sex trafficking.
Pope Leo XIV has only magnified this confusion. Though he recently muttered a few words denying he supports open borders, his actions and rhetoric signal the opposite. He consistently encourages mass migration into the West, especially from the poorer regions of the Global South.
Passive-aggressive rhetoric
All this might be tolerable if it weren’t so passive-aggressive. Fr. Josoma is at least forthright. The pro-immigration bishops, by contrast, wrap their open-borders stance in warm, fuzzy language about “compassion” and “Christian charity.” They never explicitly endorse illegal mass migration, but every message they send clearly communicates support for it.
Worse, they frame the debate as a false dilemma: either welcome millions from the Third World with open arms and open wallets, or turn everyone away and treat them like garbage. In their telling, unrestricted immigration is Christian charity; any attempt at regulation is moral failure. Like the Good Samaritan caring for the mugging victim, Americans are told to fund luxury-hotel stays and generous entitlements for ex-convicts from Haiti.
Little is said about the profound cultural and social challenges posed by non-Christian mass migration. Western Europe’s experience with Muslim migration is well-documented: spikes in crime, poverty, and urban decay.
In the United States, Muslim and Hindu migrants increasingly form self-segregated enclaves, complete with their own customs and sometimes their own informal legal norms — communities where Christian Americans are outsiders in their own towns.
Some progressive Christians claim this is an opportunity for evangelization. Yet no one in the church seems interested in actually evangelizing. Instead the faithful are browbeaten to be more “accommodating,” while bishops host endless interfaith dialogues with leaders who preach backward belief systems fundamentally at odds with liberal democracy.
Follow the money trail
Why then have bishops embraced such a self-destructive position? Two reasons stand out.
First, many bishops are simply committed leftists. Under Pope Francis — for most of the woke era — this meant preaching climate dogma and celebrating the LGBTQ agenda. Under Pope Leo, it means promoting open borders and a global welfare regime. The ideology changes, but the political alignment remains.
Second, mass migration pays. State and federal governments funnel enormous sums to Catholic NGOs for immigrant resettlement. “Caring for the stranger” has become a lucrative business. Vice President JD Vance, himself a Catholic, was blunt when he said much of the bishops’ outrage at border enforcement comes down to the billions of dollars at stake.
By shutting the border and deporting illegal migrants, the Trump administration is threatening a revenue stream.
Lingering hypocrisy
For conservative Catholics, the bishops’ partisan protests have become intolerable — especially after their submissiveness during COVID. Having failed as shepherds when it mattered most, they still presume they possess the moral authority to demand open borders forever.
It feels reminiscent of the Catholic Church’s reaction to the Black Death. As Barbara Tuchman recounts in her excellent history of the 14th century, the Catholic Church ramped up the sale of indulgences to replenish its coffers after the plague. Revenue rose. Respect collapsed. The peasant uprisings that followed eventually swelled into a continent-wide revolt that split Christianity.
Today’s immigration racket is unlikely to cause that level of destruction, but it is still a serious problem. Younger Catholics — anyone not a Baby Boomer — now tune out the clergy’s homilies about “harsh treatment” of migrants. They know it isn’t true. The Catholic Church in America is already as diverse and welcoming as a religious institution can be.
I was reminded of this recently at a Mass celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The only service I could attend was the evening Spanish Mass. Among Filipinos, Vietnamese, Latinos, Tejanos, and a handful of fellow gringos, I listened to our Indian priest celebrate the liturgy in Spanish, accompanied by a choir singing mariachi-styled hymns.
Nothing about this scene matched the bishops’ narrative of a hostile, unwelcoming Catholic Church. Perhaps if more of them bothered to attend or celebrate such a Mass, they would drop the sanctimonious posturing and address real problems.
That alone would be a welcome Christmas gift.
Roman Hierarchy Should Discipline NYC Church For Confirming Unrepentant Gay TV Anchor
Nothing less than a clear and firm correction of the priests who conspired to abuse the sacraments and confuse the Catholic Church’s unambiguous teaching on homosexuality will suffice.Bishops Vote To Prohibit Trans Surgeries And Hormone Treatment In Catholic Hospitals
Catholic teaching on gender is clear, but many Catholic hospitals have blatantly ignored it and performed transgender surgeries.Packed churches, skyrocketing conversions: Is New York undergoing a Catholic renaissance?
The years-long trend of American de-Christianization recently came to an end, with the Christian share of the U.S. population stabilizing at roughly six in ten Americans, according to Pew Research Center data. Of the 62% of adults who now identify as Christians, 40% are Protestants, 19% are Catholics, and 3% belong to other Christian denominations.
There are signs in multiple jurisdictions pointing to something greater than a mere stabilization under way — at least where the Catholic Church is concerned.
The New York Post recently found that multiple New York City Catholic parishes have not only seen a spike in conversions but their churches routinely fill to the brim. That's likely good news for the Archdiocese of New York, which was found in a recent Catholic World Report analysis to have been among the 10 least fruitful dioceses in 2023 in terms of baptism, conversion, seminarian, and wedding rates.
'We've got a real booming thing happening here.'
Fr. Jonah Teller, the Dominican parochial vicar at Saint Joseph's in Greenwich Village, told the Post that the number of catechumens enrolled in his parish's Order of Christian Initiation of Adults for the purposes of conversion has tripled since 2024, with around 130 people signing up.
Over on the Upper East Side, St. Vincent Ferrer has seen its numbers double since last year, jumping to 90 catechumens. The Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral has reportedly also seen its numbers double, ballooning to around 100 people. The Diocese of Brooklyn doubled its 2023 numbers last year when it welcomed 538 adults into the faith and expects the numbers to remain high again this year.
Attendance in New York City reportedly skyrocketed in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was apparently attending mass with his Catholic wife, Erika, and their children.
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"We're out of space and exploring adding more masses," Fr. Daniel Ray, a Catholic Legionary priest in Manhattan, told the Post. "We've got a real booming thing happening here, and it's not because of some marketing campaign."
While a number of catechumens cited Kirk's assassination as part of what drove them to the Catholic Church, others cited a a desire for a life- and family-strengthening relationship with God; a desire to partake in the joy observed in certain devout Catholics; a desire for community; a desire for "guardrails"; and a desire for anchorage and meaning in a chaotic world where politics has become a substitute for faith.
"My generation is watching things fall apart," Kiegan Lenihan, a catechumen in the OCIA at St. Joseph's told the Post. "When things all seem to be going wrong in greater society, maybe organized religion isn’t that bad."
Lenihan, a 28-year-old software engineer, spent a portion of his youth reading the works of atheist intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. After experiencing an anxiety-induced crisis at school, he apparently sought out something of greater substance, devouring the works of Marcus Aurelius. He found that his life still lacked greater meaning despite achieving material success.
'The Catholic Church is a place of sanity.'
"I realized on paper, I had everything I wanted, but I had no fulfillment in my soul," said Lenihan, who remedied the problem by turning to Christ.
Liz Flynn, a 35-year-old Brooklyn carpenter who is in OCIA at Old St. Patrick's, previously sought relief for her anxiety and depression in self-help books and dabbled in "pseudo spiritualism."
After finding a book about God's unconditional love for his children in a gift shop during a road-trip stop at Cracker Barrel, she began praying the rosary and developed an appreciation for Catholicism.
"I'm happier and calmer than I've ever been," Flynn told the Post. "Prayer has made an enormous impact on my life."
New York City is hardly the only diocese enjoying an explosion in conversions.
The National Catholic Register reported in April that numerous dioceses across the country were seeing substantial increases in conversions. For instance:
- the Diocese of Cleveland was on track to have 812 converts at Easter 2025 — 50% more than in 2024 and about 75% more than in 2023;
- the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, expected 56% more converts in 2025 (607) than in 2024 (388);
- the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, was expected to see a year-over-year doubling of conversions;
- the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, was expected to see a 59% year-over-year increase;
- the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska, was set for a 45% increase;
- the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, was expecting a 39% increase in converts; and
- the Archdiocese of Los Angeles noted a 44% increase in adult converts.
Besides the Holy Spirit, the conversions were attributed to the National Eucharistic Revival, immigration, and evangelization.
Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg told the Register that people are flocking to the church because it stands as a bulwark against the madness of the age.
"I think the perception of the Catholic Church is changing," said Bishop Berg. "In a world of insanity, I think that people are noticing that the Catholic Church is a place of sanity."
"For 2,000 years, you know, through a lot of turbulent times — and the Church has been through turbulent times — we still stand as the consistent teacher of the faith of Christ," continued Berg. "The people are intrigued by that."
As of March, 20% of Americans described themselves as Catholics, putting the number of Catholic adults at around 53 million nationwide.
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God doesn't make anyone gay: The case against banning 'conversion therapy'
In response to to a recent Supreme Court case, last week Fr. James Martin posted on X that so-called “conversion therapy” should be banned.
That’s not compassion. That’s censorship dressed up as virtue. And as a Catholic priest, he should know better.
When a young man says, 'I want help living chastely,' telling him his request is unrealistic and maybe even illegal — that’s cruelty.
This case, Chiles v. Salazar, isn’t forcing anyone to change. It’s about the freedom of young people, their parents, and counselors to even talk about faith, identity, and healing.
Refuting 'born this way'
Early this summer, my Ruth Institute colleague Fr. Paul Sullins and I submitted an amicus brief to the court concerning the Chiles case. Fr. Sullins is a former sociology professor at Catholic University of America. I am a former economics professor at Yale University. In our brief, we summarized research on sexual orientation and on change therapy.
Fr. James Martin’s core argument actually comes at the end of his post, where he says:
“Like it or not, understand it or not, this is how God made them. Accepting the way God made them is part of the 'respect, compassion and sensitivity' that the Catechism calls for.”
Notice that he treats the “born this way” idea as something so obvious that it doesn’t even need to be defended. However, this is factually incorrect.
In 2019, a massive study of the human genome clearly showed there is no “gay gene.” The genetic contribution to self-identification as “gay” is roughly the same as a genetic contribution to other complex behavioral systems, such as the tendency to alcoholism or other kinds of addictions.
Even before 2019, studies of identical twins cast serious doubt on the claim that people are born gay. These studies examine the concordance between twins. If it were really true that "gay is the new black," then concordance between twins should be 100%. The actual number is closer to 30%.
As a matter of fact, even the American Psychological Association admits:
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.
Bad science, bad theology
The APA is correct when it says that many possible factors contribute to the development of persistent same-sex attraction or a gay identity. A set of contributing factors is not at all the same as one cause, as if one and only one thing were in play. The Ruth Institute’s report “Refuting the Top 5 Gay Myths” explains this in more detail. You can obtain this report at no charge by subscribing to our newsletter.
For now, let us state plainly: The claim that “this is how God made them” is bad science. It is certainly bad theology, as Fr. Martin ought to know. God doesn’t make anybody gay.
And God certainly doesn’t put anybody in the “wrong body.” That idea is physical nonsense and metaphysical nonsense. Your body is you!
Fr. Martin says there’s “no evidence” that counseling like this helps. No evidence? Seriously? That’s simply false.
RELATED: ‘Must Stay Gay’ laws face their overdue reckoning
Flawed 'evidence'
Our own research at the Ruth Institute shows that talk therapy — not shock therapy or any other aversive techniques, but the talk therapy that is really at stake in this case — has helped many people find peace and stability in the face of unwanted same-sex attraction.
And the so-called “evidence” used to ban therapy that helps people reduce their feelings of unwanted same-sex attraction? There are a lot of problems with those studies, which we cover thoroughly in our amicus brief.
The most important objection is that these studies do not take account of pre-counseling distress. We found evidence that the people who are the most distressed and the most suicidal are also the most likely to seek therapy. If you correlate “lifetime suicide attempts” with “did you ever go for therapy,” some of the people were suicidal before they ever went to a counselor. It is not correct to blame the counseling for something that happened before the counseling took place!
Fr. Sullins found that taking account of the before and after basically obliterated the results of one of the most commonly cited studies that supposedly shows that “conversion therapy causes suicide.”
The truth will set you free
Besides, the claim that there is “no evidence” is a recklessly strong one. What about all the people who have Left Pride Behind, some with the help of therapy, some without? Each one of them counters the claim that “no one can change” and “therapy never works.” Even a single counter-example is enough to disprove these strong claims. And at the Ruth Institute, we’ve got a lot of cases! Don’t their stories deserve to be heard? These are real people whose stories are being systematically silenced in the public square.
I’ve listened to many of these stories. My friends who have Left Pride Behind consistently tell me that what they needed was people to walk with them, in genuine compassion.
Fr. Martin says, “It’s not a Christian value to do harm.” I agree.
But denying someone the freedom to live by his or her faith is harm.
When a young man says, “I want help living chastely,” telling him his request is unrealistic and maybe even illegal — that’s cruelty. My friends tell me how much they valued their friends and family members who stood by them as they struggled with temptation or with relapses or with discouragement. They cherish those friends as true brothers and sisters in Christ
Christian love always points to truth. The Ruth Institute stands for the freedom to heal — the freedom to live your faith fully, even when it’s unpopular or challenging.
The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the state can control what you’re allowed to say in the privacy of a counseling room. Let us hope the justices opt for freedom of speech and religion. That’s something every Catholic — including priests — should defend.
I invite Fr. Martin, and anyone who shares his views, to look again at the gospel and the science. Jesus never banned the truth — because truth sets us free.
Steve Deace interviews Protestant minister turned Catholic apologist over authority, tradition, Mary, and church unity
On a recent special episode of “The Steve Deace Show,” Steve, a devout evangelical, interviewed former Protestant pastor turned Catholic apologist Keith Nester about his decision to convert to Catholicism.
In this fascinating and educational interview, Steve and Keith dive headfirst into the turbulent waters of the core issues that separate Catholics and Protestants with openness and sincerity.
The son of a United Methodist pastor, Keith gave his heart to Jesus at church camp when he was just 11 years old. Catholicism wasn’t even something on his radar until his young adulthood, when he got the opportunity to serve as a youth pastor at a small church in Iowa. The youth program started with just 12 children, but two years later, it had grown to 250. Many of these children’s parents then began coming to the church, and the congregation exploded.
Most of these new congregants, however, were Catholics. “They were coming over to our church going, ‘This is the greatest thing ever. I've never seen anything like it before. We're learning about Jesus here,”’ says Keith.
This engrained the idea that Catholics “don't know anything about the Bible” into his mind as he began his ministry as a Protestant pastor.
But this mindset started to unravel soon after he met a graphic designer who was an on-fire-for-Jesus Catholic. The two quickly began trying to convert each other. Keith, who at the time was in seminary school, consulted his Bible professor to give him the information he needed to “defeat this Catholic.”
“She just said to me, ‘Well, we believe that because we're Protestants,”’ says Keith, who was forced to go on his own “wild goose chase” looking for the “silver bullet” that would prove his Catholic friend wrong.
But after years and years of searching, he never found it. It wasn’t long before he felt the Lord calling him to convert to Catholicism, but he was resistant — not because he didn’t fully believe in Catholic doctrine but because he had built a life as a Protestant youth pastor. His wife, who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, and his children were devoted to the Protestant church.
For years, Keith dodged the calling he felt God had put on his heart. “Life got pretty dark. Things went kind of crazy for me,” he admits.
In 2015 the Methodist Church, which Keith had been part of since his childhood, began unraveling. Heated debates over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ people started to fray the edges of the denomination. Keith, committed to scripture, found himself in heated arguments with other Methodists, who contended that scripture could be interpreted in different ways.
“I started to think, okay, well, if I can't argue from scripture alone, from tradition, then I have to argue from authority, right?” he recalls.
“That got turned back on me pretty hardcore. I even had someone say to me, ‘Well, if you believe in all this church authority stuff, why aren't you a Catholic?"’
This sent Keith back to the dusty Catholic apologetics books his old friend had given him years prior. “Through a series of just deep dives into things and … semi-mystical experiences, where I just had things that happened to me experientially around things related to the Catholic faith, I became convinced that the Catholic Church was what it claimed to be: the one true church … the church that Jesus Christ started,” he tells Steve.
But there was still the issue of his family and established career as a Protestant minister. One night Keith cried out to Jesus: “If you want me to become Catholic, I will do it. But you've got to make a way.”
“And I'm not kidding around, Steve, from the crucifix, He spoke to me and He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. You don't need me to make a way, you just need me.’ And I realized in that moment that there He was in the Eucharist and that there He was with me, and He was calling me to lay it all on the line for Him,” he recounts. “I had never felt something more strongly when it comes to my faith in all my life.”
He went home that night and told his wife, and the next day he told the senior pastor at his church. “It was tough … but I knew in my heart that this is what it meant for me to follow the Lord,” Keith admits.
In the second half of the interview, Keith and Steve dive into the individual issues that distinguish Catholicism from Protestantism: the authority of the Catholic Church versus sola scriptura, the role of Scripture and tradition, the veneration of Mary and saints, and the nature of church unity and historical continuity.
To hear their compelling and heartfelt discussion on the core differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, tune in to the full interview above.
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