Vicar of Christ?

OK, I have to say something. Benedict XVI has just been elected as pope. Fox News just interviewed a young (sounded young, I only have satellite radio) American seminarian, who was rejoicing that there is now a pope, because the pope is the representative of Christ on earth. The church, he said, had been like sheep without a shepherd in the interim between popes.

Wait a minute. I thought Jesus was the Good Shepherd; had he abandoned his sheep? (Granted, men do serve as shepherds, but that is on a more local level, not for the whole church.) And can a single man, or any single Christian aspire to fully represent Christ? Doesn't the fact that the church is the Body of Christ, mean that it is the church as a whole who represents Christ on earth?

Well, obviously, I'm not a Catholic and can't understand or appreciate all of their perspectives. It's just that I've read a lot about identification with and commonality between Catholics and biblical Christianity, and I think there's a danger of forgetting how far apart we are theologically.

That' s not to say there is no good there or that there is nothing we can learn. I've been challenged by Henri Nouwen and you're hard pressed to find better NT theology than Luke Johnson. But when Catholics speak as Catholics, there's still a big gap.