VATICAN CITY, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Pope Leo replaced Cardinal Timothy Dolan as the leader of the Catholic Church in New York, the Vatican announced on Thursday, side-lining a prominent U.S. Church figure in a major shake-up of the country’s Catholic leadership.
Leo, the first U.S. pope, appointed a relatively unknown cleric from Illinois, Bishop Ronald Hicks, to replace Dolan as leader of the nation’s second-largest Catholic diocese, home to some 2.8 million Church members.
Dolan, Archbishop of New York since 2009 and a former president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, offered to resign in February upon turning 75, as required by Church law. Cardinals often serve until 80, the mandatory retirement age.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, editing by Giulia Segreti)
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