Pope Francis is the supreme leader of the Catholic Church.
The head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales is Cardinal Cormac Murphy-o'Connor.The General Secretariat of the Catholic Bishops' Conference has responsibility for overall administration of the Catholic Trust for England and Wales. However, the pope is still the leader of the Catholic Church worldwide. See the link below for additional information.
The pope in Rome is the leader of the entire Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church did not exist in 4 BC.
The Roman Catholic Church
The pope is the leader of the catholic Church on earth.
The following answer is for within the United States. "High ranking" could mean several things: Member of the hierarchy closest to the Holy Father the Pope: His Excellency Bishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio. The most senior U.S. cardinal: William Cardinal Baum, Major Penitentiary Emeritus.
The leader of the Catholic Church is the pope. Today (2011) that is Pope Benedict XVI.
The pope in Rome, today that would be Pope Benedict XVI, is the leader of the ENTIRE Catholic Church, even in Russia.
As of March 2013, Pope Francis is the leader of the Catholic Church.
The pope is the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church.
First of all, it's just the Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is rarely used by the Catholic Church. There is no "Roman Catholic Church", it's just a not too complementary label, although it has been picked up even by some Catholics. . Secondly, the leader of the Catholic Church is Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, who rules through His Vicar on earth, the Holy Father in Rome. Given all that, and the fact that the Catholic Church is world-wide, it is divided (administratively) into countries or groups of countries usually under a conference; for instance, the United States has a "United States Conference of Catholic Bishops." The Holy Father and everybody under him are all Bishops - Bishop is the highest clerical ordination that Our Blessed Lord gave us. Some bishops are designated as Archbishops, for instance, if they are Bishop of an Archdiocese. Other Bishops are designated as Cardinals - which means that they are eligible to vote for the next Pope. Certain dioceses traditionally have an Archbishop who is *usually* named a Cardinal, in the United States, the oldest see in the nation is Baltimore, so that Archbishop is usually named a Cardinal, as well as the Archbishops of New York, Philadelphia, and some other sees across the nation. The entire conference of Catholic Bishops may elect any of their number as their "president" for the next term. He must be a Bishop, he *might* be an Archbishop or a Cardinal, but he would still be one of the Bishops of the conference. But, bottom line? Below the Pope in Rome, the highest authority in any diocese is that diocese's Bishop. A national conference is just for the convenience of the Bishops, it has no authority outside what the individual Bishops and the Pope give it, so there really is no "national leader" of the Catholic Church.