Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to lead New York's Roman Catholics, introduced himself on Monday as an ebullient optimist,  He said he would reach out to priests, "Our priests are on the front lines of an important ministry, so I'm here to help them," Archbishop Dolan said. "I'm their servant, I work for them, and I need them more than ever." Archbishop Dolan said that increasing vocations was his "first mandate." Asked his strategy, he said, "Happiness attracts".
Late in the afternoon, Archbishop Dolan visited St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, which will graduate only three students this year to be ordained as priests in the New York archdiocese.  The archdiocese, the nation's second largest after Los Angeles, encompasses three New York City boroughs — Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island — as well as seven counties stretching as far north as the Catskills.

It has undergone huge shifts in recent decades: Many Catholics who once lived in cities have moved to the suburbs. The pews in some Manhattan parishes now are nearly empty, while some in Rockland are overflowing. And though New York is better off than most dioceses in its ratio of priests to parishioners, priests are aging and retiring far more quickly than new seminarians are signing up to take their place.

Cardinal Egan, who is 76, said at the news conference that his "greatest sadness" was that the archdiocese did not produce more vocations to the priesthood.