[2] Rigali previously served as the Committee for Pro-Life Activities chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Rigali attended Holy Cross School before entering the preparatory seminary in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, in 1949.

[6] During his service at the Secretariat of State, Rigali also served as a chaplain at a Carmelite monastery and as a professor at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

The Vatican elevated Rigali to a prelate of honor on April 19, 1980, and to a magistral chaplain in the Order of the Knights of Malta on October 25, 1984.

[6] On June 8, 1985, Rigali was appointed president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and titular archbishop of Volsinium by John Paul II.

[8] He received his episcopal consecration on September 14, 1985, from John Paul II, with Cardinals Eduardo Somalo and Achille Silvestrini as co-consecrators, at Albano Cathedral in Lazio, Italy.

[9] Rigali selected as his episcopal motto: Verbum Caro Factum Est, meaning, "The Word Became Flesh" (John 1:14).

On June 16, 2011, Benedict XVI appointed Rigali to serve as his special envoy to the celebrations at Prachatice in the Czech Republic for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bishop John Neumann.

[21] In October 2005, a grand jury empaneled in 2003 by Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham released a report on the cover-ups of sexual abuse by clergy in the archdiocese.

[22] In response to the report, Rigali stated that “no priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.” However, some groups disputed the accuracy of that statement.

[23] In 2007, a former Catholic high school student reported that he had been repeatedly molested by Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

[24] In early 2011, another grand jury in Philadelphia reported that the archdiocese was still negligent in its handling of sexual abuse accusations against clergy.

"[14][25][26] In June 2006, Rigali traveled to the White House along with Archbishop John J. Myers and Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley to attend a press conference by US President George W. Bush.

He praised the bill for offering "an authentic common ground" that will provide many kinds of life-affirming support for pregnant women and their unborn children.

[28] In March 2009, Rigali described President Barack Obama's lifting of George W. Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem cell research as "a sad victory of politics over science and ethics.

"[29] In April 2009, Rigali denounced the ordination ceremony of two Catholic women in Philadelphia, calling it a "pseudo-ordination" that "denigrates the truth entrusted to the Church by Christ himself."