My Friend Pat on our Visit to Rome

Has some reflections at his blog, "Think, Ubu, Think! Good Dog"

Check it out:

The picture above was taken on a vacation/pilgrimage that friends Adam, Erik, and Abu Daoud, and wife Kendra and I took to Rome last week. The experience has left much on which to reflect. Benedict's message was on Tertullian, and moreover how this Church Father's engagement with "secular" philosophy could be a guide for how we, as 21st-century Christians, can engage with our culture.

But I find myself ruminating more on the essence of the Roman Catholic Church. Help me out, here, readers: I know the Pope is held to be the "Vicar of Peter"...apostolicity incarnate, through succession, tracing back to Christ's institution of Peter as the Rock on which Christ would build his Church.

But what, exactly, is the Pope's relationship to/with the Roman Catholic Church? Is the Pope seen to be the representation of the Church entire? Or merely the apostolic head thereof? Or am I erring greatly in my usage of such terms?

Read it all and post your answers at The Holy Father and the Roman Catholic Church