November 17, 2010. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has been elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is sixty years old and was appointed by Benedict XVI to lead the apostolic visitation to Ireland and the Pontifical Irish College in Rome to study the crisis of sexual abuse by priests.


Archbishop Dolan succeeds Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago as the new president.  He was elected by 128 votes to the 111 that were received for Gerald Kicanas, Archbishop of Tucson, Arizona and until then vice president of the Episcopal Conference.

Until now the presidency has always fallen on the vice president of the Conference, a position that is now occupied by Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, of Louisville, Kentucky.

The new president and vice president will lead the Conference for three years.

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