Archbishop Raymond Burke said in 2004 he would not give Communion to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

The reason: Kerry’s pro-abortion political record.

Now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, Archbishop Burke said in a Sept. 27 interview the entire Democratic Party is becoming a “party of death.”

In the interview with the Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire, Archbishop Burke also criticized Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The prominent pair of Catholic politicians, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have represented Church teaching on abortion in a false and tendentious manner,” the American archbishop said.

Archbishop Burke said pro-life Democrats have become “rare, unfortunately.”

The Democrats used to be “the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society,” said Archbishop Burke, who left the archdiocese of St. Louis this year to assume his new Vatican post as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. “But it is not the same anymore.”

— Tom McFeely