Cardinal Nolan

Cardinal the Spiritual Grandad

In a wide-ranging interview with EWTN News, the archbishop emeritus touched on his years of service in New York, his future as chaplain, what being a Catholic politician means, his love for the Little Flower, and so much more.

Register StaffInterviewsFebruary 20, 2026

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop emeritus of New York, recently sat down in New York with EWTN News national correspondent Mark Irons at “New York Encounter.” 

This “exit interview” covers many topics, including the cardinal’s pastoral legacy, assisted suicide in New York, the pro-abortion-appointment controversy at Notre Dame, and the need to recover Catholic culture. The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

So many people in the Church are sad that you are no longer the archbishop of New York, but so happy for all the years spent. They’re already asking you to come back in and share your services. The New York Police Department, they’ve even named you “co-chief chaplain.” How does that feel? Are you looking forward to that?

Call me off the bench. Well, I was sitting home reading the want ads, saying, “What am I going to do now?” No, I was very moved by that. Of course, you never retire from being a priest or a bishop. People think that, and I’m always eager to clarify — no, you’re a priest, you’re a bishop forever. However, you retire from an assignment; you retire from an appointment, like I did, as the archbishop of New York. But then you still want to do a lot of priestly things, don’t you? You still want to do a lot of spiritual and pastoral things. So when the commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who does a fine job as police commissioner, called and said, “We kind of need some help, and we need a new chief of chaplains” — because the one that was marvelous for a long time, the rabbi, Rabbi Alvin Kass, had died — and she said, “We want to have two co-chaplains. We want to have an evangelical pastor from the African American community, and we want to have you.” She explained it was kind of part time, because there are full-time chaplains in the department, but I was honored. And at first, Mark, I said, “I don’t think so.” She said, “No, it’s not a full-time job. You kind of do what you want.” She was gracious enough to say, “You’re doing a lot of it anyway.” She said, “You’re always visiting the cops in the hospital or baptisms or weddings or funerals. So it’s kind of just that.” And she said, “We kind of need you because the morale of the cops is a little low, and their trepidation these difficult days might be a little tested.” So she said, “I think it would be a good shot in the arm if you and Rev. A.R. Bernard came aboard.” So I hope it was, to be of service. My grandpa was a police officer in Maplewood, Missouri, and so I got it in my bones. And you cannot be archbishop in New York without love of the police department … and guess what? About at least 35%, if not more, of the police department is Catholic.

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