First American named to head Vatican high court

[sandance2]

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. St. Louis, MO 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. Burke's new 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, Ore., as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is more power than Americans have ever had in Rome.