youngest of the six children of Thomas F. and Marie B. Burke. He is of Irish heritage with ancestors from Cork and Tipperary. Burke attended St. Mary's Parish School in Richland Center from 1954 to 1959. (In 2012, an addition to the school was named the Raymond Cardinal Burke Annex in his honor.) The family later moved to Stratford, Wisconsin. From 1962 to 1968, he attended Holy Cross Seminary in La Crosse, Wisconsin. From 1968 to 1971, he studied at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., as a Basselin scholar, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970 and a Master of Arts degree in 1971, both in philosophy. He completed studies for the priesthood at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome between 1971 and 1975, receiving a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree and a Master of Arts degree. Pope Paul VI ordained Burke to the priesthood on June 29, 1975, in St. Peter's Basilica. 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 was named the Bishop Burke Hall in his honor in 1997 and then in 2011 was renamed the Cardinal Burke Hall). From 1980 to 1984, Burke studied canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he received a licentiate in canon law in 1982 and a doctorate in canon law in 1984. He then returned to La Crosse where he was named the Moderator of the Curia and Vice Chancellor of the La Crosse diocese. In 1989, Pope John Paul II named Burke the first American Defender of the Bond of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest ecclesiastical court in the Catholic Church. Episcopal ministry Bishop of La Crosse On December 10, 1994, Pope John Paul II named Burke Bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse and consecrated him on January 6, 1995, in St. Peter's Basilica. Burke took possession of the See of La Crosse on February 22, 1995. In 2000, Burke convened the fifth diocesan synod for the Diocese of La Crosse, which resulted in the publication of Synod V, acts: celebrated June 11–14, 2000 in 2003. In 2002, he was influential in founding the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, an order of Augustinian