Should We Call Our Priests Father?

by Michael Shackleton · January 6, 2015

I have a Protestant friend who addresses a Catholic priest as mister and sir, in the belief that Christ commanded us not to call ‘any man father, for you have one Father in heaven’ (Mt 23:9). He is a stickler for obeying the Word of God, and although he is fond of our parish priest, he cannot bring himself to address him in the Catholic way. Did Jesus mean us to take this literally? – DP?Baxter

Wearing my Marist school blazer many decades ago, I was stopped by a boy from a nearby school who asked me the same question. I replied that he and I also referred to our dads as ‘father’, so I could not see the problem. I mention this to illustrate just how time-worn the question is.

I have had a couple of similar queries about the titles we give to our pastors, so I hope this response will address them as well.

Take a close look at the whole of Matthew 23. Jesus has been observing how the scribes and Pharisees put on a show of holiness when they appear in the market place in their grand religious regalia. They want people to admire them and call them rabbi, teacher, father and master. Jesus is sickened and warns his listeners not to put on such a scandalously empty show of righteousness.

Jesus likened these sanctimonious men to white-washed tombs, outwardly beautiful but full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

With this in mind we can grasp how Jesus despised hypocrites, and why he did not want us to call one another rabbi, teacher, father and master unless we were sincere about it.

In addressing our priests as ‘Father’, we are sincerely expressing our respect for them as our spiritual fathers. They are the ministers of the sacraments we celebrate and receive. They guide our minds and hearts in serving Christ faithfully. With pastoral and paternal care they teach and bless us and forgive our sins in his name.

The titles given to our clergy have varied over time and place. Senior clergy have been called pope, patriarch, abbot. All are forms of the word father. Other clergy, especially in English-speaking lands, preserve the word father for priests. The practice is similar in the Orthodox Churches.

Now that there are men and women bishops and priests in the Anglican Communion, they are often addressed as Father and Mother, though there are exceptions according to custom. Updated from 2015