The imagery was a bit startling, but there’s no denying the sincerity — and the love for New York — behind it.

“This is not about Timothy Dolan,” said the archbishop of New York as it was announced that he is being made a cardinal.

Indeed, he added, “It’s as if Pope Benedict is putting the red hat on top of the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty, or on home plate at Yankee Stadium or on the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”

Dolan’s elevation surely comes as no surprise — eight of New York’s 10 previous archbishops received the appointment — but it is no less a cause for celebration.

Because in the 22 months since he came to New York, this city has taken Cardinal-designate Dolan to its heart, and vice versa.

His warm, gregarious, affable and down-to-earth nature — when was the last time an archbishop admitted a fondness for cigars and a cold beer? — has charmed Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

More important, his determination to preach the tenets of his faith without compromise to political fashion has earned him profound respect.

Which is why he was named archbishop in the first place — and why the US Conference of Bishops, in a surprise upset, elected him its chairman, the first New Yorker to hold the job.

Nor has he hesitated to engage those whom he sees as opposing the church — like The New York Times, for the “common, casual way” in which it “offends Catholic sensitivity.”

Dolan will be formally invested at a Vatican consistory on Feb. 18.

As he was also quick to note yesterday, the other new American cardinal is New York-born Edwin O’Brien, former archbishop of Baltimore, who earlier was secretary to Cardinals Terence Cooke and John O’Connor and rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers.

As for Dolan, we have no doubt his elevation will cement his position as the pre-eminent face of the US Catholic Church and magnify both his voice and his influence.

New York’s Catholics are lucky to have him as their spiritual leader.