Why Call Priests "Father"?

Matthew 23:9 is cited as contrary to the Catholic practice of calling priests "father". This is not a good understanding of the text. First, this would exclude calling even our biological fathers "father" and clearly Jesus didn't mean that (Matt 15:4-6). Nor does he mean this in a spiritual sense as he also warns us to not call other people teachers (v. 8 & 10), but clearly we have hundreds of well accredited and trained theological professors at seminaries all across the world. So what does Jesus mean? As indicated in v. 11, he means that we do not take these titles so that they supplant the place of God, because that is pride. The preceding two paragraphs starting at the beginning of the chapter make this evident that this is the issue with those whom Jesus is criticizing and why.

With that in mind, consider the second problem with this understanding of the text, which is that it is actually done with approval elsewhere in the Bible. In the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:24, 27, 30), the rich man refers to Abraham as "father". There are multiple times in scripture where Abraham is referred to as "father" (James 2:21) Clearly Abraham was not his biological father, so what did he mean? It cannot mean genetic father for Romans 4:16 tells us to understand Abraham in the spiritual sense. The spiritual meaning of "father", one that does not supplant God, is used explicitly in 1 Corinthians 4:15, which reads (NIV), "Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel." This is all Catholics mean when we call a priest "father."

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