catholicsphere

Over the past 10 or so years of doing apologetics on the net, I have heard many raise this objection against the Catholic Church: “the Bible clearly says that you are to ‘call no man father’, yet Catholics do exactly that”. In fact, some have put it forth as though Catholics ignored or missed this passage, and the mere mention of the passage should have the magical effect of turning folks away from the Catholic Church.

Far from never hearing it (with exception to those ‘Catholics’ who don’t attend Mass, never read the Scriptures, and are connected to the Church only by a thin thread from their past), yesterday’s Gospel reading at Mass was this passage. Catholics have definitely heard it … but the understanding of it is deeper than the surface glance that some Protestants (and anti-Catholics) tend to give it.

Fr. Paul Scalia provided a wonderful perspective on this passage in the Arlington Catholic Herald (which was republished on Catholic Exchange).