In comments published over the weekend in a daily Catholic newspaper sponsored by the Italian bishops’ conference, former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said the Democratic Party “risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death.’”

According to a Catholic New Service story, Burke - now the head of the Vatican’s version of the supreme court - was told that musician Sheryl Crow played at the Democratic National Convention last month.

“That does not surprise me much,” the archbishop said. “At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a ‘party of death’ because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, ‘The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.’”

Archbishop Burke said the Democratic Party once was “the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society. But it is not the same anymore.”

Pro-life Democrats are…

Nancy Pelosi has gotten into hot water for misrepresenting Catholic Church teaching against abortion. Appearing on Meet the Press last Sunday, she said:

“I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time,” she said.

“And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.

And Senator - St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know,” she said…..

In a release issued Monday night, Washington, D.C.,  Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said Pelosi’s comments on “Meet the Press” on Sunday “were incorrect.”

“We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record.”

He cited…

Archbishop Raymond Burke dedicated the pilgrimage site - the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe - he founded in his home diocese of La Crosse, Wis. yesterday.

Joe Orso, religion reporter and columnist at our Lee Enterprises sister paper, the La Crosse Tribune, wrote a great story about yesterday’s dedication. And the paper has a terrific, interactive multimedia page for anyone who wants to take a closer look at the shrine.

The shrine’s own website has some interesting features, including a schedule of events that Burke took part in during this dedication week. And a Catholic New Agency story has a good description of some of the shrine’s features.

And Duncan Stroik, one of the shrine’s architects, describes the shrine on his website.

The St. Louis Archdiocese is in a brawl with a national Catholic newspaper.

Earlier this week, the National Catholic Reporter posted an article on its website written by its executive editor, Tom Fox. The story cited anonymous sources who said an affidavit in the archdiocese’s file for Sr. Louise Lears suggested the archdiocese had sanctioned a secret video taping of a women’s ordination ceremony last fall.

NCR said the affidavit gave “permission to an individual to attend the ceremony in order to record it.” According to the story:

The archdiocese authorized someone to record the rite and then used the recording, along with photographs apparently taken from the video, as evidence to punish a Catholic nun who attended the liturgy, according to several people familiar with the case.

The paper subsequently updated its story with quotes from Rabbi Susan Talve, whose Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis was the site of the ordinations, and who told the paper…

If you are running short on patience with what you see as various jackanapes who publicly criticize Archbishop Burke on his style rather than on his message — which is what really ticks them — you might be interested in veteran Vatican watcher John Allen’s recent column.

Allen writes:

“Since news of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s appointment as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura was announced June 27, I’ve received numerous telephone calls and e-mails, from both sides of the Atlantic, posing some version of the following question: Was this a case of what the Italians call promuovere per rimuovere … promoting someone in order to get rid of him?

“…..The following … is not based on any insider insight. Nonetheless, my hunch is that this is not a case of promuovere per rimuovere, but what one might call “promotion for multiple motives.” In no particular order, I suspect that at least the following…

(1) Happy Birthday, Archbishop Burke. Ad Multos Annos!

(2) A local nun looks back on imprisonment in a WWII camp:

“On Chinese New Year the sisters’ hearts skipped a beat when they were told they had been summoned to the office of the camp’s commander.

“We were told to come to the Japanese headquarters and we wondered what in the world was going to happen,” Sister Mathews said. “So we marched, I think it was a mile and a half. We had a soldier behind each one of us and two soldiers at the tail end (of the group). We wondered what in the world would happen when we got there…..”

(3) The Pope does not wear Prada.

(4) Bad tenured teachers are hard to fire:

MIDDLE ISLAND, N.Y. (AP) — Few people know better than school superintendent Allan Gerstenlauer that disciplining a tenured teacher can be a long and expensive process.

An English teacher in his…

Speaking from Rome last week, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke put the kibosh on rumors that he was meeting with Pope Benedict XVI to receive a new appointment to become archbishop of New York.

“I can assure you that’s not the case,” he told the Post-Dispatch, laughing. “This trip has been planned for months.”

Burke said he was in Rome to take part in the second International Congress-Pilgrimage for consecrated virgins.

Rumors about whom will succeed Cardinal Edward Egan as the archbishop of New York have swirled since Egan reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last year. In April the cardinal turned 76 and it’s believed Benedict will name his replacement in the coming months.

Burke has been the archbishop of St. Louis for nearly 4.5 years, and will turn 60 in June. He’s been involved with the consecrated virgin movement since before being installed in St. Louis, serving as the group’s official liason with…

We hosted a thoroughly enjoyable — and noisy — dinner party last Friday night, full of laughter and stories as we celebrated Pope Benedict XVI’s successful visit to the United States. One of our party had been on the South Lawn of the White House, while another had taken her youngest son to the New York Yankee Stadium Mass. Two of the eight of us are professors and two are lawyers, so you know there was a lot of talking going on!

We learned about the long Washington, D.C. line that would have made it to the Washington Monument had it not curled around a corner, about old friends hailed in passing, about the excellent organization of the event.

We heard about the beautiful weather in both cities — and the St. Louis Carmelite sisters’ calm assurances that the sun would indeed shine for the New York Mass, despite overwhelming early morning…

Our religion-blogging compatriots at Get Religion, spotlighted a story from Politico Monday about Pope Benedict XIV’s U.S. visit that might be of interest to St. Louisans, especially St. Louis Catholics.

On Thursday, Benedict will celebrate the first of two stadium Masses during his visit. Thursday’s Mass will be at Washington’s new Nationals Stadium, and the second will be at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.

Politico reported that earlier this week, in ads placed in the Washington Times and in Politico,:

the anti-abortion-rights American Life League is urging the pontiff to “protect the body of Christ from the bloodstained hands of pro-abortion ‘Catholics’” by denying Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.

The issue of denying Communion to such politicians is well known to those who have followed St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s words and actions on this topic since his time as bishop of LaCrosse, Wis.

While most bishops agree that such politicians should not approach for Communion, a relatively…