Raymond Leo Burke - Priestly Ministry

Priestly Ministry

After his ordination to the priesthood Burke was assigned as assistant rector of the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He also taught religion at Aquinas High School in La Crosse, where a new addition built in 1996–1997, the Bishop Burke Hall, was named in his honor. From 1980 to 1984, Burke studied canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he received his license (1982) and doctorate (1984). He then returned to La Crosse and was named the Moderator of the Curia and Vice Chancellor of the La Crosse Diocese. In 1989, Pope John Paul II called Burke to be the first American Defender of the Bond of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest ecclesiastical court in the Catholic Church, apart from the Pope himself.