{"id":74638,"date":"2025-12-18T18:16:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T18:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/74638\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T18:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T18:16:18","slug":"archbishop-of-new-york-ronald-hicks-reveals-he-and-pope-leo-share-same-favorite-chicago-pizza-joint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/74638\/","title":{"rendered":"Archbishop of New York Ronald Hicks reveals he and Pope Leo share same favorite Chicago pizza joint"},"content":{"rendered":"

The just-appointed Archbishop of New York,\u00a0Bishop Ronald Hicks<\/a>, is ready to take the Big Apple and its famed pizza, revealing Thursday that he and Pope Leo share the\u00a0same favorite pie joint<\/a>\u00a0back in their hometown of Chicago.<\/p>\n

Hicks was introduced to his new parishioners at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in Midtown Thursday morning by the outgoing Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who is retiring as Archbishop of New York after 16 years.<\/p>\n

Hicks, the bishop of the Diocese of Joliet in Illinois, was tapped to take over for Cardinal Dolan by Pope Leo XIV \u2014 who Hicks had met before he assumed the Holy Throne in Rome and bonded over their favorite pizza pie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found him to be extremely relatable,\u201d Hicks said when asked about his relationship with the pontiff.<\/p>\n

Bishop Ronald Hicks, left, embraces Cardinal Timothy Dolan, at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in Manhattan on Dec. 18, 2025. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Bishop Ronald Hicks and Pope Leo both reportedly chose Aurelio\u2019s Pizza as their favorite joint in Chicago. Aurelio’s Pizza<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I do also like the fact that we grew up in the same area. We would have played baseball in the same parks, swimming in the same public pools \u2014 and we even share a famous pizza place that\u2019s our favorite,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While Hicks did not reveal exactly which pizza place, Pope Leo\u2019s favorite is reportedly Aurelio\u2019s Pizza, which has locations all around Chicagoland. His Holiness famously has pepperoni pies shipped to the Vatican.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo\u2019s Chicago choice is Aurelio\u2019s. Tam Nguyen \/ NYPost Design<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore he became Pope I had the opportunity to meet him in Chicago, actually last year in August. He spoke at one of my parishes in my diocese and gave a wonderful talk,\u201d he recalled of their meeting.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV received a pizza from Aurelio\u2019s Pizza as he rode through Saint Peter\u2019s Square in July. Instagram \/ @jaydenremias<\/p>\n

\u201cAfterwards he said, \u2018can I just get five minutes with you?\u2019 And that five minutes turned into about 20 minutes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Holy Father,\u00a0born Robert Prevost<\/a>, hails from the South Side of Chicago, not far from Joliet. In May, he became the first American pontiff in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Hicks grew up in South Holland, Illinois, and was named the sixth bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Joliet by Pope Francis in 2020. He was installed at the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus two months later.<\/p>\n

The just-appointed Archbishop of New York, Bishop Ronald Hicks, seen with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The bishop was rumored to be succeeding Dolan, who reached the church\u2019s mandatory retirement age of 75 in February,\u00a0church insiders told The Post<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he said he looks forward to meeting worshippers of New York and helping them deal with the complex issues of the big city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am committed to working with the great variety and diversity of faith leaders and civic leaders to keep that hope alive and to make the real promise of the golden door by acting in mutual respect and working to uphold human dignity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The just-appointed Archbishop of New York,\u00a0Bishop Ronald Hicks, is ready to take the Big Apple and its famed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37623,4840,8287,57,9,24,55,54,56,343,5638,33997,58],"class_list":["post-74638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bishop","tag-catholic-church","tag-chicago","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-pizza","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-timothy-dolan","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74638","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=74638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}