The “pastor” of a Catholic parish will be a priest. Not every priest will be a pastor, though.
In my experience, a catholic referring to any priest as a pastor is rare, indeed. Maaybe if there’s a junior priest who handles youth ministry, he’ll be called the youth pastor but that still sounds pretty lutheran to this poster.
A Catholic pastor is basically the priest in charge of a parish with several priests , although there seems to be a trend towards appointing “administrators” instead of “pastors” . (I’m not sure what the difference is.) You won’t often hear Catholics referring to the pastor because it’s usually not necessary to specify that you’re talking about the pastor and not one of the other priests.
If you call the Rectory and want to speak to the “guy in charge,” but don’t know the names of the priests of the parish, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask to speak to the pastor.
You won’t have to explain yourself.
And you’ll get the guy in charge.
~VOW
This. The norms are quite limited, and while all of the above items are common features of RCIA as she is spoke, and all are theologically fitting, none of them are norms.
That’s a local thing, I don’t know whether it will go by parish, by country or what. Both my local parish and my mother’s offer Catecumenado de la Conversión (RCIA) and in both cases it’s done at the same times as any other catechesis, not at the same time as any Masses. Then again, we begin by never having catechesis on Sunday - the first time I ran into the expression “Sunday school” I had to ask what did it mean.
Huh. I had no idea becoming a Catholic was so much work.
The only reason I got confirmed was so that should I experience a religious awakening in my twilight years, I can skip RCIA.
Well, it’s basically a year of Catechesis, of learning about the church’s tenets. I wouldn’t call that “too much work”, but then, my Confirmation group choose to take the three years course (most people take one). The Nephew is in his first year of Communion catechesis, the whole course will be two years.
Contrary to Inner Stickler’s experience, the appointment of a priest as pastor of a parish is a big part of Catholic life. Regular churchgoers know who their pastor is, as opposed to other priests also assigned to the parish – “parochial vicars,” or assistant priests – or simply in residence.
By canon law, a pastor is the single priest responsible for the pastoral care of a certain community of Christ’s faithful stably established within a diocese. He is appointed by the bishop, and is responsible for ensuring that parochial registers of baptisms, of marriages and of deaths are recorded according to the law, a parish archive is maintained.
Although he is assigned by the bishop, that assignment creates certain rights under canon law. For example, a bishop cannot simply fire a pastor without either the pastor’s consent or a trial.
A parish administrator is assigned when the parish is vacant, and can happen for several reasons. First, if the diocesan see is itself vacant, then the diocese will be under the care of a diocesan administrator – this happens when the Bishop dies, retires, or is transferred. Until the Pope appoints a new Bishop, the diocesan administrator doesn’t have the authority to appoint pastors. But if a parish is vacant, he may appoint a parish administrator, who performs the necessary functions but does not have the rights, under law, that a pastor does. This is considered a temporary fix; indeed, canon law provides that if the diocesan see has been vacant for over a year, then the diocesan administrator may lawfully appoint pastors.
The Ordinary – the Bishop – may also choose to appoint a parish administrator rather than a pastor. This is often done, again, as a temporary fix, or as a way to see how a younger priest handles the responsibility of being in charge without creating the more permanant expectation that being assigned pastor would bring. It’s not unusual, in the annual publication of priest assignments in a diocese, to see something like, “Fr. O’Malley, from administrator, St. Luke’s parish, to pastor, St. Luke’s parish,” a sign that the temporary assignment went well. Or “Fr. O’Malley, from administrator, St. Luke’s parish, to parochial vicar, St. Michael’s parish,” a sign that perhaps some more experience as an assistant would help Fr. O’Malley.
I know it’s not a lot of work in the abstract, but to enter most Protestant congregations you just have to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and have some water splashed on you.
In fact, it’s a well-publicized annual aspect of Catholic life.
It’s the old disagreement once again: faith vs. works. 
I’m not sure what you mean by norms, but all of the process I described is highly specified, there are specific prescribed prayers and rites for all of it, and it is officially taught to liturgists and others involved, in diocese-wide seminars. The amount of compliance, of course, varies quite a bit. As it happens, the liturgist for my parish is also the liturgist for the entire diocese, so in my parish there may be more compliance than in others.
It isn’t so easy to find official Catholic liturgical procedures on the internet. But we kind of invented rigid codified procedures, so believe me it’s all written down somewhere.
Also, in my diocese being confirmed does not excuse an adult from going through the RCIA process. Neither does being baptized into another faith. If you are not “in full communion”, then you go through the whole thing just like anyone else. The rites of initiation you receive at the Easter Vigil will differ, is all.
Oh, and about the word pastor? It is universally used in Catholic parishes to describe the priest in charge of that parish. At least in my diocese it is.
Haha! Other priests assigned to the parish?! Crazy talk. The priest at my hometown parish currently covers 4 or 5 different parishes. In larger cities and closer to the bishops, there may be more priests but for a lot of people the priest is the pastor and there aren’t any other priests around who need to be differentiated like that.
Universally would require that the whole world, every single language, use that term. Your diocese <> the wole world.
Reminds me of this:
One of the few memorable things I read in Reader’s Digest.
I had a friend who converted as an adult for several reasons, one of them being so that he could marry his Catholic fiancee.
He underwent the Baptism and Confirmation in rapid progression. After the latter ceremony, I went up to his fianceee (who had been his sponsor), and told her “I hope you’re satisfied. Because of you, he’s now a Confirmed Bachelor.”
I am not sure what you mean by this. Of course, an adult who was baptized into another denomination would have to go through RCIA - there are two other sacraments incolved. But I’m not sure what you mean about confirmation- if you mean that someone who was confirmed in a different denomination would have to go through RCIA, I don’t recall anyone saying otherwise.
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.