FACT CHECK: Debunking Protestant Errors About Catholicism! “Why do you call Priests ‘Father?'”
Nina Leone, Saint Under Construction, and I are excited to network together on a brand new project here for The Cup of Joe! It is a series dealing specifically with answering common Protestant objections to the Catholic Faith. We first met Nina through social media, where she had a following due to her uncompromising posts regarding truth in the modern world. She is a recent convert to Catholicism. It is an honor and privilege to see God at work within her, and for us to call her a true friend and a sister in Christ in every sense of the word. We are truly humbled and grateful to God for His work of grace within the heart of Nina. Each week, she will pose a question for me to answer, and I will respond accordingly with a blog article! Without further ado, here is the first one.
Here is how the question is typically posed by Protestants: “Didn’t Jesus teach that no man on earth should be addressed as “father,” and wouldn’t that deny the Catholic practice of using the title “Father” for priests? The passage they are referencing is from the Gospel According to St. Matthew, chapter 23:9-10. Here are a few different renderings from various translations:
DR: And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ.
RSV: And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.
KJV: And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
NIV: And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.
NLT: And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father. And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.
So, let us examine this first in its wider context, and then in its immediate context, in order to have an accurate view of what Jesus is teaching. It is worth noting that one of the unfortunate errors within Protestantism is the notion of Private Interpretation as the final court of appeals in matters of faith and morals. The reason I mention this at the outset is because Protestants are left to their best guesses when it comes to trying to figure out which passages of Sacred Scripture ought to be interpreted literally and which ought to be interpreted figuratively. And this is where many errors creep in.
As a good example, Protestants read Matthew 26:26, where Our Lord institutes the Holy Eucharist by taking bread and saying, “This is My Body,” and they conclude He is speaking figuratively. However, in this circumstance from Matthew 23:9, where Jesus says, “Call no one your ‘father’ upon earth,” they take Him literally. But what did Jesus intend to teach by saying this? The context helps us in this, and it also demonstrates a rather obvious inconsistency in the Protestant argument.
First, let us examine the wider context. In Matthew 23, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as sitting on the “seat of Moses,” and thus they pride themselves in their position of authority. They love the praise, respect, adulation, prestige, and power that comes with their position. However, Our Lord then goes on to reveal that they are nothing but a sorry band of hypocrites. Look at some the choice words Jesus has for the Pharisees in this very chapter:
“They do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see… they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others… You hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are… Woe to you, blind guides… You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence… You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead… You appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness… You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
The heart of this entire chapter comes to us in verse 12, where Jesus teaches, “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” The wider context is clear as day. Jesus is condemning the notion of merely desiring a title because of the perks that come with it, meanwhile remaining a hypocrite inside with no care whatsoever for God or your fellow human being in need. Our Lord instructs us to not call such individuals “father” or “teacher,” because it would only serve to inflate their pride and ego. Rather, He calls the leaders of His Church to be humble, giving us a pointed example at the Last Supper when He washed the feet of His own disciples. He wishes His Apostles to imitate His example in the way He sacrificed Himself even to the cross out of love for His Father in Heaven and for mankind.
The immediate context reveals even much more to us. First, note how Our Lord says, “Call no man on earth your ‘father.’ So then St. Paul must have missed that part when he wrote this to the Corinthians: “I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. 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” (1 Corinthians 4:14-15). Wait, St. Paul?! Did you not know what Jesus taught regarding this? You see, here we have St. Paul calling the Corinthians his “dear children,” and going one step further by calling himself their “father.” We know the Sacred Scripture can not contradict itself. And St. Paul is not contradicting Our Lord. Rather, the Protestants unfortunately misunderstood the meaning of Our Lord’s teaching centuries after the fact, because again, they rely on the Magisterium of their own personal interpretation.
This is an integral point, however, because the private opinions and judgments of the Protestants in effect puts Jesus and St. Paul at odds with each other here. This only means that their grid for interpretation of Sacred Scripture is flawed at the root. St. Paul goes on to tell the Galatians, “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). In his letter to the Philippians, referencing St. Timothy, he writes, “But Timothy’s worth you know, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel” (Philippians 2:22). He even calls Timothy, “my true child in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2).
St. Paul is not the only one who does this. St. Peter addresses St. Mark as his “son” in 1 Peter 5:13, even though Peter is not Mark’s biological father. Likewise, St. John addresses his audience as his “little children,” and even references some of the men as “fathers” in 1 John 2. We also have the testimony of St. Stephen who spoke of “our father Abraham” in Acts 7:2, as well as St. Paul again who refers to “our father Isaac” in Romans 9:10. St. Peter refers to the Old Testament saints as “fathers” in 2 Peter 3:4.
The Old Testament provides with more examples as well of spiritual fatherhood, such as Joseph being a “father” to Pharaoh in Genesis 45:8; Eliakim, whom God calls a “father” to Jerusalem in Isaiah 22:21; Elisha who is called “father” by the King of Israel in 2 Kings 6:21. So the summation of all this evidence demonstrates that Jesus was speaking in a figurative way, with hyperbole for added emphasis, in warning His disciples to not assign spiritual titles to men not worthy of the honor and distinction, using the Pharisees as His example, and to always strive for humility in their service as leaders of the Church. He is cautioning them to remember that God is the standard for all, and thus we have only one ultimate Father and Teacher in that sense. All spiritual fathers and teachers are only as such insofar as they, too, take their directives and instructions from Almighty God. This is where the Pharisees failed, because they stopped following God, and as Jesus said to them in John 8, they took on a new father who was Satan.
The other point that must be made in the immediate context is Our Lord’s follow up statement: “Nor are you to be called instructors.” The Greek term here is kathēgētai, which is translated in English literally as “masters, teachers, instructors, guides, leaders, educators” according to Strong’s Concordance and also Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. It is also the same word wherein we derive the term “professor.” If Jesus is to be taken literally in an absolute sense, as the Protestants claim, then why does He say “Do not be called teachers,” and then just a few verses later in the same chapter (Matthew 23:34) He tells the Pharisees, “Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers.” Again, we know that Our Lord is not contradicting Himself within a matter of verses.
In the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus even commands His disciples to “teach” all nations. St. Paul writes, “For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher” (1 Timothy 1:11). In 1 Corinthians 12:28, St. Paul even says that there is an office in the Church for teachers: “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.”
St. Irenaeus, 2nd century martyr who was a 2nd generation student of St. John the Apostle, wrote, “For when any person has been taught from the mouth of another, he is termed the son of him who instructs him, and the latter is called his father.” As well, Irenaeus joins Hegesippus and Tertullian in the early Church as referring to the bishop as “father in Christ.” St. Hilary, in the 4th century, refers to those who taught him the faith as the “holy fathers.”
So we see that the Catholic Christian practice of designating titles to spiritual leaders is firmly rooted in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We see that Jesus was driving home a very particular point in regards to leaders within His Church by using the Pharisees as His example. We see the Protestants ruptured this biblical and historical practice due to the tragic error of Private Interpretation. We now sincerely pray for all Protestants to convert to the Christian Religion established by Jesus Christ, found in His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. May they find the joy and peace of receiving Our Lord in the Eucharist.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. We love you. Save souls. Amen.
By: Joe Moreaux
