<\/a> Another question from RCIA: the old Protestant challenge: \u201cJesus says, \u2018Call no man Father.\u2019 Why do Catholics call their priest \u2018father\u2019 and the Pope \u2018the Holy Father.\u2019<\/p>\nThis challenge usually flummoxes the ordinary Catholic. Sometimes he\u2019s bewildered because he really doesn\u2019t know his Bible that well and he\u2019s confused. But he\u2019s also bewildered because he hasn\u2019t been taught to read the Bible in such a literal way.<\/p>\n
Now we can give this a serious answer, and perhaps we should. We can find passages of Scripture where St Paul refers to himself as the father of his audience and the spiritual father of Timothy. We can give explanations about the Jewish context of the time, where the \u2018father\u2019 was a spiritual master who had semi divine status and the devotees bowed down to him.<\/p>\n
Instead of arguing with the non Catholic, let\u2019s try to get him to understand how a Catholic views his objection. The typical Catholic has heard Jesus saying \u2018Call no man Father\u2019 and honestly never connected this with his own habit of calling the priest \u2018father.\u2019 That\u2019s because he\u2019s not used to taking verses totally out of context. He suspects that Jesus\u2019 admonition was spoken to the Jews of the first century to a particular historical context, and finds it strange to have that verse taken out of context and thrown at him as a rebuke in the twenty first century.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s bewildered that his Protestant brother has lifted the verse out to argue with him, and is not quite sure whether it is a joke or not.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how it seems to the Catholic: Let\u2019s say some sincere person pulled up the verse, \u201cJudas went out and hanged himself.\u201d and then the verse, \u201cGo thou and do likewise.\u201d Then he said in all seriousness, \u201cSo you see, the Bible says we should all go and hang ourselves!\u201d Any sane person says, \u201cWhat! are you crazy! That\u2019s not what Jesus meant! That\u2019s not who he was talking to. That\u2019s taking the verses totally out of context. You can\u2019t do that and be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Bible Christian is deadly serious, and perhaps that is his greatest fault: not that he takes the Bible and his faith seriously, but that he takes his interpretation seriously, and if he takes his interpretation seriously it is a seriously serious probability that he takes himself too seriously.<\/p>\n
He needs to have the hermeneutic of humor. In other words, he needs to see that if we must take Jesus\u2019 words, \u201cCall no man \u2018father'\u201d out of context and totally literally, then we can (and perhaps must) do the same with countless other snippets and gobbets of Scripture.<\/p>\n
Shall we pull out the verses that tell us not to eat shellfish or pork chops, to have our sons circumcised in a religious ritual, for our women to be silent in church and not to cut their hair and keep their heads covered? Shall we prohibit them from wearing trousers and shall we men grow curly locks on the corners of our head and grow our beards long?<\/p>\n
Shall we take all of Our Lord\u2019s injunctions with the same serious literalism? Let us tell our parents that we hate them, then pluck out our eye and cut off our hands to enter the kingdom. Indeed, let us have ritual amputation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBless me Father, I have sinned. I have stolen five dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour penance is to have your hand cut off. It is better to enter life maimed\u2026The deacon is performing amputations every second Saturday at ten in the church courtyard. Be there early the lines are long.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, the discussion comes down to the question of authority. All Christian groups have to decide which Scriptures are to be taken literally, which are for this time and which are not, and how to apply the word of God in our day to our times and to our present needs. By what authority do we do this?<\/p>\n
The Catholic says the Church that gave us the Scriptures must interpret those Scriptures. The Evangelical Protestant really believes that it\u2019s every man for himself.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another question from RCIA: the old Protestant challenge: \u201cJesus says, \u2018Call no man Father.\u2019 Why do Catholics call their priest \u2018father\u2019 and the Pope \u2018the Holy Father.\u2019 This challenge usually flummoxes the ordinary Catholic. Sometimes he\u2019s bewildered because he really doesn\u2019t know his Bible that well and he\u2019s confused. But he\u2019s also bewildered because he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>