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Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday said he would elevate two dozen churchmen to the influential rank of cardinal, a rank that for 20 of them includes the power to vote on a successor to the 83-year-old pontiff after his death. Among those tapped is an American archbishop who has become one of the harshest critics of President Obama and pro-choice politicians -- and of bishops he feels are not sufficiently hard line.

The pope's appointment of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, formerly head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and currently the top judge on the Vatican's supreme court, was balanced by the nomination of Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, a churchman of moderate temperament who has resisted calls by conservatives to police the altar rail by denying communion...