With the inauguration of Zohran Mamdani, New York stands as, if not a beacon of hope, then a thin flame of cautious optimism for the future of leftist politics in the U.S. Even as the federal administration incinerates the last shreds of the social safety net, embarks on brazen aggression abroad, and unleashes unaccountable terror squads at home, the young, charismatic new mayor of the nation’s largest city has spent his first month in office successfully corralling billions from the state budget to expand child care, reopening protection offices for tenants, and vowing to protect all of the city’s residents, regardless of immigration status. Prominent among the historical New Yorkers Mamdani has cited as inspirations for his program are, of course, the legendary mayor Fiorello La Guardia, as well as La Guardia’s protégé, the Catholic socialist Vito Marcantonio.

When, in 1954, the extreme conservative Cardinal Francis J. Spellman of New York refused Marcantonio a Catholic burial, he was acting as unofficial head of American Catholicism and so, perhaps, was the most powerful religious leader in the country. This was a time of historic transformation in the American Church, from the quasi-pagan religion of the ethnic poor into the paragon of prosperous whiteness, as Italians, Irish, and southern Germans climbed into affluence and the Church insinuated itself into every vital institution, from the academy to the judiciary. Seeing his flock’s ascendency as directly tied to the fate of the new global superpower, Spellman’s rejection of Marcantonio was not only the spurning of an arguably prodigal son — the congressman, for his part, claimed he had never “abandoned the faith of his fathers” — but also a defensive maneuver against the incursion, real or perceived, of the electoral socialism of which the deceased had been so effective a champion.

In any other year, Mamdani may have anticipated similar hostility from his hometown church. But as it happens, Gracie Mansion is not the only official residence in which there will be a new occupant this year. On February 6, the Archdiocese of New York installed Ronald Hicks as the new archbishop to lead its 2.4 million Catholics. For many living in the city, including even a good number of those Catholics, this will seem a mere administration handover, a new landlord for the buildings in which no one seems quite sure what goes on most of the time. But Hicks’s appointment could well mark a transition in the life of the American Church every bit as momentous as Mamdani’s rise promises to be for the left.

The election of Pope Francis in 2013 ushered in a period of contentious debate within the American Church over what kind of loyalty was owed to the Bishop of Rome. The Argentine pontiff’s direct, occasionally brusque attacks on the global economic system that produced both massive wealth inequality and a looming climate catastrophe struck many Catholics — an increasingly Republican voting bloc since the social realignment of the 1970s around abortion — as a rebuke to their self-perception as the victors of history. At the episcopal level, a number of American bishops noticeably dragged their feet, if not openly protested, as Francis implemented a........

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