[hopefulpilgrim]

vicar: "a person who acts in place of another." (Webster ) (representative) Like Congressmen??? Uh oh, then we're in trouble. 8^ P

What I'm saying is that Christ appointed His own representative on earth----the Holy Spirit, our Paraclete.

[RobbyS]

That is a very loose definition. Think of what it means in the English Church. It goes back to the days when a priest was given a parish, or a "living". Back in the bad old days before the Reformation, he could "own" several such livings. Since he could not actually serve the different parishes, he would take the tithe that he earned from the parish and use part of it to hire a vicar who would actually serve the parish. In other words, the vicar was a hireling or servent. The pope is really the servant of christ, or to put it another way, chief minister.