St. \u00d3scar Arnulfo Romero<\/a>, but his connection to Latin America was forged through his experience with the Nuestros Peque\u00f1os Hermanos organization (\u201cOur Little Brothers\u201d; NPH by its Spanish acronym), which he joined as a volunteer before entering the seminary.<\/p>\nNPH is an international organization founded in Mexico in 1954 by an American priest, Father William Wasson. Since its founding, the institution has provided comprehensive support, including a home, education, and medical care to more than 20,000 minors in extremely vulnerable situations in Latin America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
In 1989, Bishop Hicks arrived as a volunteer at the NPH headquarters in Mexico. During that first encounter, he met orphans Emilia C\u00e1rdenas Ponce, 11, and her brother Abad, 9, who were living at the institution after their parents\u2019 murder.<\/p>\n
In an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Emilia C\u00e1rdenas remembers Hicks as someone \u201cvery cheerful, very attentive,\u201d who was especially close to her younger brother, as Hicks serves as the caregiver in charge of the boys. Although they didn\u2019t live in the same building, Hicks maintained constant contact to ask how Abad was doing and to make sure he was fed and protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cRon would tell me, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll take care of him, I\u2019m keeping a close eye on him,\u2019\u201d C\u00e1rdenas recalled. Although Hicks was only there for a year before returning to Chicago to enter the seminary, \u201cwe continued to maintain that friendship,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Over time, fate brought them together again. In 2005, having become a priest, Bishop-elect Hicks returned to Central America with a greater responsibility: as regional director of NPH Central America, a position he held until 2010. Based in El Salvador, he oversaw the NPH homes in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n
Bishop Ronald Hicks\u2019 visit to El Salvador after being ordained auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2018. | Credit: Nuestros Peque\u00f1os Hermanos El Salvador<\/p>\n
By then, C\u00e1rdenas was collaborating with NPH in El Salvador, and she said reuniting with \u201cPadre Ron,\u201d as he was known, was a great joy. Although he still had the same cheerful demeanor, she now remembers him as a \u201cvery organized, very responsible person, but always with that great empathy for people, both adults and children.\u201d<\/p>\n
C\u00e1rdenas emphasized something that deeply impacted about her relationship with Bishop-elect Hicks was the importance he placed on people: He made an effort to remember the name of every child and adult with whom he interacted. When he celebrated a graduation Mass, a wedding, or even a funeral, he wanted to know about the people in each situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has such a big heart that he treats everyone so specially; he truly makes them feel important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In El Salvador, Bishop-elect Hicks worked closely with Olegario Campos, affectionately known as \u201cUncle Olegario,\u201d who was the national director of NPH El Salvador from 1999 to 2019. In an interview with ACI Prensa, Campos remembered Hicks as a \u201cvery respectful\u201d person who \u201cloved the children very much and was always close to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop Ronald Hicks (center), and Olegario Campos (right). | Credit: Nuestros Peque\u00f1os Hermanos El Salvador<\/p>\n
During those years, NPH El Salvador cared for approximately 340 orphaned and at-risk children with the support of about 140 staff members.<\/p>\n
Campos recalled that for both adults and children, the man who is now the archbishop-designate of New York was seen as a \u201cvery respectful, very humble, very kind person\u201d but, above all, he emphasized that \u201che always listened to us, he always gave us his support.\u201d<\/p>\n
El Salvador: A life-changing experience<\/p>\n
But if Bishop-elect Hicks left a profound mark on those who knew him, Latin America also left its mark on him. Years later, during the Mass the night before his installation as bishop of Joliet, Illinois, in 2020, he recalled \u201can experience that changed my life and my perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recounted that, at the beginning of his work in Central America, four children between the ages of 12 and 14 came to his office to speak with him. He asked them to wait a few minutes while he finished his work, but the wait lasted longer than expected. When he was finally able to attend to them, one of them said to him: \u201cFather, you are more like a lawyer than a priest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words, he confessed, \u201cbroke my heart.\u201d He thought about everything he did to help them and wondered if \u201cthey didn\u2019t realize that I was the one working with a team to keep this roof over their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop Ronald Hicks celebrates a school graduation Mass for children in Miacatl\u00e1n, Morelos state, during his visit to Mexico in 2025. | Credit: Nuestros Peque\u00f1os Hermanos Mexico<\/p>\n
However, the question that lingered was another: \u201cWhen I leave here after five years, how do I want to be remembered?\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this changed the way he related to them, and he made sure \u201cto spend real time with them, being with them, praying with them, eating with them, playing with them, listening to them. Simply being there as their spiritual father and as their pastor.\u201d<\/p>\n
That experience motivated him to want to be a bishop close to the people, a \u201cbishop who spends time with the people of God, a bishop who tries to be a good shepherd.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The best archbishop in the world\u2019<\/p>\n
C\u00e1rdenas said without hesitation that \u201cthose people in New York really hit the jackpot\u201d regarding Hicks\u2019 appointment: \u201cThey\u2019re going to have the best archbishop in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they are gaining a pastor who knows how to listen, who \u201cpays close attention\u201d to those he\u2019s talking to, regardless of their ages or backgrounds.<\/p>\n
Bishop Ronald Hicks administers a sacrament. | Credit: Nuestros Peque\u00f1os Hermanos El Salvador<\/p>\n
Campos said the New York Church is gaining a pastor with a great capacity for resolving conflicts. He said Hicks strove for \u201cunity among everyone to better serve the children; to provide us with his support so that the children would be better off,\u201d and \u201che really did a very good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few weeks before he assumes his pastoral duties in New York on Feb. 6, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops shared a video in which the prelate shared that his time in Central America deeply impacted him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat experience with the people and with the culture changed and transformed me. And that\u2019s what happens when we have an encounter with Jesus, with his word, his sacrament, the Eucharist, an encounter with him through acts of charity and mercy toward others. When we have an encounter with the Lord, we go home by a different way. We are changed and we are transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n
That different way home, for Bishop-elect Hicks, passed through Latin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bishop Ronald A. Hicks, whom Pope Leo XIV recently appointed as the archbishop of New York, comes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37565,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-113167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bishop-hicks","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}