When he answered the phone in 2021, Father James Golka was happily serving as a priest in the city where he was baptized and raised, Grand Island, Neb., and could easily visit his parents and many of his 64 cousins.

The call from the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C., the Vatican’s representative in America, informed Father Golka that he was about to become Bishop Golka — the third leader of the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs — which is celebrating its 40th anniversary and includes nearly 200,000 registered Catholics in 10 counties that stretch west to Leadville and Buena Vista and east to Burlington and Cheyenne Wells.

As is usually the case, he hadn’t sought the position, and was unaware his brother priests and bishops had recommended him through a secret process.

He was appointed and consecrated as bishop in 2021. When he turned 58 in September, he was still younger than most of the 434 U.S. bishops, whose average age is slightly older than 66.

A family’s faith

Golka was the fourth of 10 children born to a Polish father and German mother who were intentional about practicing and passing on their faith. His eight surviving siblings are practicing Catholics in Catholic marriages.

He remembers seeing his parents praying together in good times and bad. When his mother’s mother died, his mother thanked God for her mom’s many years of life and release back to God.

“Somehow, mom and dad formed in us a great love of our Lord and a desire to meet him in our Catholic faith,” Golka said.

He felt called to the priesthood in the eighth grade and was ordained in 1994 at age 28.

“I knew that being a priest was one of the most difficult things I could ever do, and I like to be challenged,” he said.

A bishop’s work can be even more difficult, and three years into his new job, Golka said he’s still growing into the role, and at times “drinking from a firehose.”

He oversees dozens of employees and 39 parishes, but sees himself as a shepherd, not a CEO.

“I love being a pastor, and I’m trying to learn to be a pastor in a different way now,” he said. “I thought I trusted the Lord totally, but then he made me a bishop, and I had to learn to trust him all over again.”

Practicing discernment

When he arrived in Colorado Springs three years ago, the contrasts with his previous parish of Grand Island were clear. Colorado’s population growth has grown the Springs diocese, unlike Nebraska, where many small rural towns were declining or dying.

When locals asked him about his goals and agenda for the diocese, he said he didn’t know but would ask God to reveal what should be done.

“God knows the plans for this diocese,” he said. “We don’t have to make it up. We should listen to God and let him reveal.”

He has since led diocesan leaders through spiritual discernment he says he learned about as a Jesuit University.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, described the process in his Spiritual Exercises, written four centuries ago. Ignatius said the exercises could help people discover God’s will:

“Just as strolling, walking, and running are bodily exercises, so spiritual exercises are methods of preparing and disposing the soul to free itself of all inordinate attachments, and after accomplishing this, of seeking and discovering the Divine Will regarding the disposition of one’s life, thus insuring the salvation of his soul.”

The bishop invited members of his leadership team to a retreat in Michigan focused on drawing close to and listening to God. In April, he wrote a memo about the process.

The memo says diocese faces many challenges, including a troubled world and typical parish problems, but it has been given an essential assignment.

“We were born for this,” he wrote. “God could have chosen us to be alive at some other time in history, but in His providence and love He has destined us to be alive now, in the midst of these cries, and He has equipped us with gifts — both natural and supernatural — for this time.”

Practicing foundational virtues

Golka has focused his energies on helping parishes increase members’ involvement in the work of the church, caring for the well-being of his brother priests, and promoting participation in and understanding of the Eucharist.

He and other diocesan workers attended this summer’s Eucharistic congress in Indianapolis. A recent Pew survey noted that 45% of U.S. Catholics don’t know that their church teaches that the wine and bread used in Mass miraculously become the body and blood of Christ.

He also posts weekly reflections on Scripture to YouTube, with each lesson lasting around three minutes. (The reflections can be found on the diocese’s website, along with videos about the 40th anniversary.)

He guides his conduct and relationships by practicing three cardinal virtues:

1. Humility. “The virtue by which a Christian acknowledges that God is the author of all good. God is the infinite loving creator. We are the finite flawed creature. I need a savior.”

2. Charity. “The theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. Treat everyone as a child of God — for they are.”

3. Unity: “The union of the people of God, in all their various distinctives and expressions, bound to God and to one another by the gospel. In Christ all are one. Christ is our source of unity.”

In his teaching and preaching ministry, he often disagrees with other influential Catholics whose views on divisive issues differ from Catholic social teaching.

“Our culture has become so divisive that it has become OK to yell at people,” he said. “There’s a righteous anger, and our Lord got angry at the proper time, but if your politics are making you angry, God isn’t the center of your life. I want happy Catholics. There are enough angry ones.”

Golka hopes to continue here until he turns 75, the age at which bishops are required to submit their resignation. But many bishops are kept in their jobs past 75, including Golka’s predecessor, Bishop Michael Sheridan, who was named bishop in 2003, retired at the age of 76 in 2021, and died of prostate cancer in 2022.

Asked what he hopes people will remember about his tenure if he retires in 2041, he said, “That the Lord was at the center of everything I did, and the diocese was animated to be more faithful by serving him and each other.”