Days ahead of Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, Colorado’s Catholic community is witnessing a momentous transition that echoes up and down the Front Range.

The church’s first American pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, has appointed Colorado Springs Bishop James Golka to succeed the retiring Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver. The departure of Aquila, 75, caps a nearly decade-and-a-half-long tenure of him shepherding not only his flock of Denver Catholics with integrity and grace, but also providing a crucial counterbalance of moral authority in complex cultural moments and on controversial issues — one non-Catholic as well as secular Coloradans alike can appreciate.

Aquila wasn’t afraid to weigh in on touchstone public policy. In November 2023, more than a decade into Colorado’s marijuana legalization, the archbishop penned a pastoral letter titled “That They Might Have Life.” It laid out a compelling-yet-caring case concerning how Colorado’s cultural acceptance and legalization of drugs has hurt the Centennial State.

“While drug use can offer temporary relief and escape,” Aquila wrote, “it is certainly not a solution to our problems, and the costs far outweigh the benefits. Having experienced firsthand the societal consequences of legalizing marijuana, we must share the truth of what we have seen, heard, and lost.”

Aquila’s stance on assisted suicide resonated personally for him. Two decades after his mother outlived a doctor’s fatal prognosis by half a year — blessing the then-priest with precious time — he argued against Proposition 106, enabling a person deemed six-months-or-less terminally ill by a doctor to kill themselves with a physician’s assistance.

“As the case of my mother shows,” Aquila wrote, “how often are those diagnoses wrong? Most of us know people who outlived a fatal diagnosis by months or years, and in some rarer cases doctors misdiagnose their patients completely.”

Sadly, Coloradans voted largely in favor of the legislation, at 65%.

“We cannot allow our state,” the archbishop added, “to become the next suicide state. We must treat life with care, dignity and true compassion.”

A decade later, how sage Aquila’s warning was.

As the archbishop of the state’s largest diocese, Aquila led the church’s good deeds statewide through its Catholic Charities network as well as its school system — entities that have been rock-steady amid truly turbulent times for nonprofits and schools elsewhere.

Right there with him was Golka, 59, who for his four-and-a-half years in charge of the Colorado Springs diocese proved prudent in his stewardship of an increasingly robust Catholic community in the greater Pikes Peak region.

No matter your denomination of faith, or lack thereof, Coloradans across the political and philosophical spectrum can appreciate how Aquila contributed to Colorado’s attempt at a shared, if sometimes thorny, statewide accord. And it came by not shrinking away from cardinal conversations.

Golka’s record proves he possesses the promise of that same courage. Whether you agree or disagree, in a nation and state of free speech and religion, this kind of crucial candor and leadership by example is critical to a more fulfilled Colorado community — and a greater peace across our divergent associations as free citizens.