New archbishop appointed for Denver

February 07, 2026

Pope Leo XIV today appointed Bishop James Golka of Colorado Springs as the archbishop of Denver.

Bishop Golka, 59, succeeds Archbishop Samuel Aquila, 75, whose resignation the Pontiff accepted for reasons of age.

Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Grand Island in 1994, Bishop Golka was appointed rector of the Nebraska diocese’s cathedral in 2016 and diocesan vicar general in 2018. Pope Francis named him bishop of Colorado Springs in 2021.

In 2024, Bishop Golka issued a pastoral letter, “Christ Our Hope,” in which he called for a greater availability of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and emphasized the need for personal conversion, prayer, and lay evangelization. Quoting St. John Paul II, the bishop also spoke of the need to strengthen the Catholic identity of schools.

According to a recent Catholic World Report analysis, the Diocese of Colorado Springs has had an above-average track record in attracting priestly vocations, ranking 71st out of 175 Latin-rite dioceses in the United States in its ratio of seminarians to Catholics. (The Archdiocese of Denver ranked 106th.) That analysis was based on data in the 2024 edition of The Official Catholic Directory; the number of diocesan seminarians in Colorado Springs subsequently fell by over 20% in one year, from 17 (in the 2024 edition) to 13 (in the 2025 edition).

 

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Further information:

• Resignations and Appointments, 07.02.2026 (Holy See Press Office, 2/7/26)
• Christ Our Hope (Diocese of Colorado Springs, 12/12/24)