A conservative and pastoral pragmatist from a Portuguese-Irish background on the West Coast of the United States, he rose through the ranks to become head of the oldest congregation in the Roman Curia

William J. Levada, who has died aged 83, will be remembered for far more than the ecclesiastical altitude he achieved as the highest-ranking United States cardinal ever to serve in the Vatican.

Levada served a long and storied career as a teacher, parish priest, auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles, Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, and then Archbishop of San Francisco. He was called to Rome in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI to be his own successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the oldest congregation of the Roman Curia, known as “La Suprema”.

In addition to his lifelong interest in Anglican-Catholic relations, Levada was from 1987 to 1993 the only North American on the seven-member editorial committee that served the commission drafting the new Catechism of the Catholic Church.