It’s December. It’s Chanukah. It’s Christmas. Holidays of light and hope, a time to be reminded that good will is not a sign of weakness, that empathy is not only for suckers. Pope Leo’s appointment of Bishop Ronald Hicks to replace New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a welcome sign of a new wind a-blowin’ and a welcome antidote to the desperate fever speech Trump subjected us to on Thursday; his rant touting America (his America, not ours) for (his) Americans only. Dolan, a leading conservative who is close to Trump, who often appeared on Fox & Friends, who delivered one of the invocations at Trump’s second inauguration, and called Charlie Kirk a “modern day St Paul” will be replaced by bishop Ronald Hicks, a pro-migrant bishop from Chicago who said that the US should “be a country that upholds human dignity, respect (and) treating each other well.” This December, which message shall we embrace? I choose Pope Leo and Archbishop Hicks. I choose the message of respect and treating each other well, of the strength and worthiness of good will and empathy over Trump’s message of division, fear and suspicion. We are better when we seek what unites us, not what divides us, when we choose light and hope.