Archbishop named to Vatican post

ST. LOUIS – An archbishop who tussled with singer Sheryl Crow, college basketball coach Rick Majerus and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry over their support for abortion rights has been named as the first American to lead the Vatican supreme court.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, an expert in church law and perhaps the most outspoken of conservative U.S. bishops, will likely be made a cardinal after his appointment Friday. The supreme court is traditionally headed by a cardinal.

Burke’s disputes with public figures drew attention to the archdiocese in his 4 1/2 years here, which seemed to surprise the affable church man who grew up in rural Wisconsin.

“I’ve been frustrated, and bothered that the impression of me has been quite negative … as unpleasant, arrogant,” Burke said Friday. “I’ve tried to be a good shepherd for the flock.”

Burke’s appointment shows that Pope Benedict XVI has a great amount of respect for U.S. bishops, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. It comes on the heels of Benedict’s naming William Joseph Cardinal Levada, former archbishop of San Francisco and Portland, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“This is more power than Americans have ever had in Rome,” Reese said.

Some see Burke as a champion of orthodoxy who represents a refreshing return to church values. Others view him as sorely lacking as a pastor, an unbending stickler for the letter of the law. His targets said he fought them using arcane, medieval church codes they could barely decipher.

In 2004, he caused a stir by saying he would deny Communion to Kerry because of the Massachusetts senator’s stance supporting abortion rights.

Last year, he protested Crow’s appearance at a benefit for a Catholic children’s hospital over her support for embryonic stem cell research.