Over at Catholic News Service, John Thavis says the appointment of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, late of St. Louis, to the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, is “a small but significant appointment that could have an impact on the worldwide church for years to come.”

Thavis may be understating that impact. The Congregation for Bishops, which has about 30 members, is the body that vets and recommends candidates for bishop, and at 61, Burke could participate in that process for nearly two full decades before he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 80.

As Thavis notes, Burke has been among the church’s most vocal opponents of abortion, insisting that the Eucharist be denied to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, saying the Democratic Party "risks transforming itself definitively into a 'party of death' " and warning that nothing can justify voting for a candidate who supports "anti-life" and "anti-family" legislation.

After Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston presided over the funeral of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Burke said “one sees the hand of the Father of Lies at work in the disregard for the situation of scandal or in the ridicule and even censure of those who experience scandal."

And as the church attempts to reconcile with a traditionalist faction whose leaders were excommunicated 20 years ago for consecrating their own bishops – an effort that became controversial earlier this year when Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of a holocaust denier – Burke celebrated a Mass in the pre-Vatican II Tridentine rite this month in St. Peter’s Basilica, probably the first such Mass there in 40 years.

As David Gibson writes, the news of Burke’s appointment “may elicit celebration or anxiety, depending on one’s view of life in the church these days.” Rocco Palmo (scroll down to “The Judge of Bishops”) says: “Though it can only be gauged with time, the emergence of a potential – and potentially significant – "Burke effect" on Stateside appointments bears watching.”