James R. Golka
James Robert Golka was born September 22, 1966, in Grand Island, Nebraska, one of ten children of Robert and Patricia Golka. He earned philosophy and theology degrees from Creighton University in Omaha, volunteered for a year (1989) at a high school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and completed seminary at Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota (1990-1994), earning a Master of Divinity and a Master of Sacramental Theology. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Grand Island on June 3, 1994, by Bishop Lawrence McNamara.
As a Grand Island priest, Golka served as pastor of parishes in Scottsbluff (2000), North Platte (2006), and the Cathedral of the Nativity (2016), and served the diocese as director of clergy formation and chair of the diocesan liturgical commission. Pope Francis appointed him third Bishop of Colorado Springs on April 30, 2021; he was consecrated June 29, 2021, at Holy Apostles Church, just weeks before Traditionis Custodes was promulgated on July 16, 2021.
Pope Leo XIV appointed Golka the sixth Archbishop of Denver on February 7, 2026, accepting the retirement of Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila. Golka was installed at a Mass on March 25, 2026, at the CoBank Arena at the National Western Complex before more than 4,000 people. Media coverage repeatedly framed him as a unifier and pastor. His personal record as Archbishop of Denver on the Traditional Latin Mass is, as of mid-2026, essentially undocumented: no liturgical decree, restriction, or expansion under his Denver tenure has surfaced in public reporting.
- 2021-07His response letter on the motu proprio: 'In the meantime, I grant permission for those who have been offering Mass in the Extraordinary Form to continue to do so.' No restriction followed in his tenure. (The diocesan PDF of the letter no longer resolves; the sentence is carried by the TC tracker's diocesan summary.) ↗
What Golka inherits in Denver is one of the more favorable TLM landscapes in the United States, and he inherits it intact. His predecessor, Archbishop Samuel Aquila, responded to Traditionis Custodes permissively: in his 2021 decree he allowed parishes and priests already offering the Extraordinary Form to continue, stating that doing so 'will contribute to the spiritual good of the faithful.' The FSSP has had a Denver apostolate since 1996, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Littleton was erected as a personal parish in 2009. As of 2026 the archdiocese still hosts the FSSP parish, a Carmelite community Mass, and diocesan TLM sites in Fort Collins, Boulder, and Erie. There is no ICKSP presence documented in Denver.
Golka's own record, from Colorado Springs, is the strongest positive signal. He was consecrated weeks before Traditionis Custodes and, rather than restricting, permitted existing Extraordinary Form Masses to continue, keeping his diocese 'green' on independent suppression trackers for his entire tenure. Crucially, this is his act, not Aquila's -- it establishes that when Golka personally held the authority to restrict, he chose continuity and the pastoral good of the faithful attached to the older Mass. His background as a former diocesan liturgical-commission chair suggests a pastor comfortable with liturgy rather than hostile to it.
The honest verdict is too early to judge on his specific Denver governance, because his Denver liturgical record is genuinely thin and we will not manufacture one: no decree, no ad orientem or altar-rail rule, no sacrament policy has appeared since his March 2026 installation. But the direction of the available evidence is favorable. A bishop who left the TLM undisturbed for five years in his own diocese, who is consistently described as a unifier, and who has taken no restrictive action in a TLM-friendly archdiocese he now leads, is best read as a likely friend to Tradition on present evidence, pending his first concrete Denver liturgical decisions.