ROME — Pope Leo XIV named a new archbishop of Westminster on Friday in another high-profile appointment that signals a generational shift in the English-speaking Catholic hierarchy.
Leo tapped Bishop Richard Moth, 67, to replace the retiring Cardinal Vincent Nichols, 80, as the London-based archbishop of the largest British diocese in terms of Catholic population and priests.
The appointment came a day after Leo named Bishop Ronald Hicks, 58, to succeed the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan as archbishop of New York, one of the biggest and most important archdioceses in the U.S.
Dolan and Nichols had been two of the heavyweight English-speaking cardinals for more than a decade, both of them appointed to their high-profile jobs in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Nichols would become more closely associated with Pope Francis, who made him a cardinal in 2014 and kept him on the job well beyond the normal retirement age for bishops of 75.
Dolan, who is affiliated more with the conservative wing of the church, had submitted his resignation to Francis in February, as required by church law when he turned 75. Leo accepted it 10 months later, soon after Dolan finalized the creation of a $300 million settlement fund for victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Leo has indicated that he wants to respect the 75-year-old retirement age norm more vigorously going forward, as a way to reinvigorate the church leadership, though he allowed that there could still be two-year extensions granted for cardinals.
Leo made the comments last month in a speech to Italian bishops, saying the church has to “constantly renew itself” to confront today’s challenges. “We must prevent inertia from slowing necessary change, even for good intentions,” he said on Nov. 25.
Moth was born in Chingola, Zambia, and has served as bishop of Arundel and Brighton since 2015. Prior to that, he was bishop to the British armed forces.
He takes over at Westminster Cathedral, which is considered the mother church for Catholics in England and Wales.
In another appointment announced Friday, Leo accepted the resignation of Bishop Gerald Barbarito, 75, as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida, and named as his replacement the Rev. Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, currently pastor of the Our Lady of Sorrows church in the Queens borough of New York City.
With 17,000 congregants in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood of Corona, the church is the largest parish in the Diocese of Brooklyn, which also oversees churches in Queens. It was particularly hard-hit during COVID-19, losing more than 100 of its parishioners.
Rodriguez has been a staunch advocate for migrants, who make up most of his congregants, and he is now leading the diocese that is home to President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. Rodriguez said in an interview on Friday that the Catholic Church wants to help the president to do better.
Catholic leaders in the U.S. have denounced the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, which has split up families, incited fears and upended life in American churches and schools that serve migrant communities. The administration has defended the crackdown as safeguarding public safety and national security.
“When it comes to enforcing immigration laws, we shouldn’t be enforcing them by focusing on deporting 5-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 9-year-old kids, people that have never committed any crime," he said. "So, we’re here to help. We’re willing to help, and God willing, we will.”
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Associated Press reporter Luis Henao contributed from Princeton, New Jersey.
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