
“Pastor” is the term for the person that leads a church / church congregation. The general ranking of the hierarchy is:
- Deacon (not yet a priest, are usually all volunteer, but can do some ceremonies)
- Pastor or priest (ordained, usually employed by the Church itself, they’re allowed to hold all ceremonies and conduct mass or church service)
- Bishop (management level, must be 35, must be a priest for 5 years)
- Archbishop (oversee multiple churches and run the archdiocese; there’s 196 in the US. Wyoming has a single archdiocese)
- Cardinal (upper management, only cardinals are allowed to vote on new popes)
- Lastly - Pope. The man at the top, there’s only one.
J.D. Vance is Catholic, and referred to the Pope as a ‘pastor’. This would be like somebody saying “(insert American President) was a good mayor”.
Yea yea there’s some schismatics out there that claim to be the “actual” pope but there hasn’t really been an anti-pope since 1449.