“This is a signal that the conference wants to be a leader in the culture wars,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown. “The two vice-presidential finalists were the two most conservative on the ballot. That says something about where this conference is going.”

The final vote for president, after 10 candidates were narrowed to two, was 128 for Archbishop Dolan and 111 for Bishop Kicanas. Three years ago, when the same two men were finalists for vice president, Bishop Kicanas defeated Archbishop Dolan by two votes, according to the Catholic News Service.

Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and an adviser to some of the bishops on political and moral issues: “You could imagine a different approach where the bishops would say, ‘This guy is too combative. We need someone more conciliatory.’ They didn’t do that.”

Professor George noted that Archbishop Dolan was the host of the meetings that produced the “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto issued last year by prominent evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders to reignite and unify religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and what the leaders considered as threats to religious freedom. Mr. George, who helped to draft the document, said Archbishop Dolan was one of the original signers.

It was impossible to tell whether the bishops were influenced by a last-minute lobbying campaign against Bishop Kicanas that was mounted by conservative Catholic bloggers, who accused him of being soft on abortion and homosexuality and of allowing a seminarian who was accused of sexual abuse to be ordained as a priest.

Several advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse by priests had lobbied against Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Dolan, saying both were involved in covering up abuse cases.

The Vatican has no direct role in the bishops’ vote, but had expressed its confidence in Archbishop Dolan this year by appointing him to a panel that was investigating seminaries in Ireland, which has been devastated by the sexual abuse scandal.