Title of Catholic Priests

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jpete79:
You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

I just want to chime in with my two cents. The issue at hand is NOT the title itself, it is the reason for the title. It is because we are NOT to be exalted by humans.

When we call our dads “father” it does not give a position of exaltation to him. It is a title that is appropriate. Even when we call others ancestors such as Abraham “father” it is appropriate because it was Abraham’s covenant with God that brought forth our relationship with God (because of Isaac). I would even say that calling the early Church writers “father” is not wrong as they are ancestors. I don’t call any of these “father” for reasons of exaltation as they are all human. I use the term in an ancestral fashion as a descendent of these people.

As far as with relations with Priests, I ask, what is the purpose of the title? Is it meaningless or is it due to putting on a position of power? Well, I look at the Holy Father himself, the Pope, and people bow to him and kiss his hand. This to me seems like it is definately a title due to the purpose of exaltation. I think of the sacrament of penance, where a Priest can absolve the sins of a man through confession.

I am not saying that all Priests and Popes abuse their power but I am saying that the phrase from the Bible is a phrase about humility. Why should we not call people, Father or Teacher is because of the exaltation that can go with it. I unfortunately do see that in the Catholic Church.

Also, Paul may have said to call him father as it was a role Christ gave but there is no showing of him being exalted. The closest we see is in Corinthians where people are being baptized in different names and Paul says that he is glad he only baptized two households. He doesn’t want his name to be spoken he wants Christ’s. Even when he said I am your father, in a spiritual sense, he still said it was a role appointed by Christ…he is saying that there should be a transfer of power and was humble.

I am not saying that the Pope or Priests cannot be humble. John Paul II was one of the humblest men I’ve ever seen. I do see that power does come with position in the Church though and that glorifies the clergy and not the Lord in many instances.
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I don’t believe that because a person is called or calls someone father that they are bad or prideful. It is just a dangerous practice. Also I’m trying to let people know that the Bible is the Word of God and to adhere to what Jesus said.

Also we argue so much about a meaning of a certain Scripture, and there are so many differences of opinion. I don’t often hear that someone has goin to Jesus and asked Him how they should understand the Scripture.
giver
 
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Giver:
I don’t believe that because a person is called or calls someone father that they are bad or prideful. It is just a dangerous practice. Also I’m trying to let people know that the Bible is the Word of God and to adhere to what Jesus said.

Also we argue so much about a meaning of a certain Scripture, and there are so many differences of opinion. I don’t often hear that someone has goin to Jesus and asked Him how they should understand the Scripture.
giver
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Being scripture is the word of God written by man through the breath of the Holy Spirit then what are we to believe?

I thought Protestent is Sola Scripture? Does that mean you believe in some sort of Tradition?
 
We each see things depending on our background, bias, perspective. I see people having respect for the Pope because he has given up his life to be a servant to the servants of God. I also have a similar respect for my father and did for my now deceased Grandfather.
Titles are necessary and we call priests father as they are part of our family.
This is love and our love for others in no way diminishes our love for Jesus. Most non-catholics do not see our worship and how it is centered around Jesus. We do not center our worship around people and I invite you to go to Mass to see for yourself.

Catholics do not see a God who hoards all attention to Himself who gets angry when we love our family or others. Or if we give respect to our brothers and sisters as we see Jesus in others. So me kissing the ring of someone I respect is not worship but respect. You can misintepret our actions, but God knows our hearts.

Do you think Priests enjoy listening to sins. Some non-catholics think that this is a position of power for some crazy reason too. Do they enjoy to sit for hours and hours listening to the same sins over and over day after day? This is service that priests do in their dedication of their lives to the service of others for God.

I invite you to look at this with a more objective view and not such a subjective view. Look at the Mass and see how we worship.

Here are some samples…
“All glory and honor is yours almighty Father for ever and ever”

Holy, Holy Holy Lord God of power God of might
Heaven and earth are full of your Glory
Hosanna in the Highest
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
Hosanna in the Highest"

God Bless
Scylla
 
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Giver:
I would like to remind you of something: (1 John 3: 3 - 9) “Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ. Any one who sins at all breaks the law, because to sin is to break the law. Now you know that He appeared in order to abolish sin, and that in Him there is no sin; anyone who lives in God does not sin, and anyone who sins has never seen Him or known Him.
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So does this mean that all men have never seen Him or known Him?
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

This is the problem with just grabbing parts of the Bible to make a point, we can go in circles forever. There is truth and opinion of truth.
Anyone who holds that you can just quote the Bible and come up with truth denies truth.

If I say that I have truth and you have truth based on interpretation only one of us is right. If there is more than one interpretation derived from the Bible from prayerful reading then someone is wrong. But every denomination thinks it is right which deny’s truth.

As a Catholic I believe the Bible is God’s Word and see multiple truths as blasphemy. That is where I feel people disrespect the Bible by self interpretation to their own opinions.
Truth is not opinion.

God Bless
Scylla
 
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Giver:
I didn’t say anything about authority, I said honor, and show me in Scripture where Jesus shares His Glory. All glory and honor belongs to Jesus not to us.
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Honor your father and mother.

Hmmm…
 
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Giver:
If your comments were meant for me, I’m not a protestant, and am not trying to desecrate the Catholic Church. .
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So you are Orthodox? What, then, do you call your priests? If you aren’t Orthodox, then you are Protestant whether you know it or not.
 
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Sherlock:
So you are Orthodox? What, then, do you call your priests? If you aren’t Orthodox, then you are Protestant whether you know it or not.
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Not so. There are Progressive Catholics haha… Joking. Either you are in union with the Holy Catholic Church or you are not. If you are not then you are Protestant.
 
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scylla:
So does this mean that all men have never seen Him or known Him?
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

This is the problem with just grabbing parts of the Bible to make a point, we can go in circles forever. There is truth and opinion of truth.
Anyone who holds that you can just quote the Bible and come up with truth denies truth.

If I say that I have truth and you have truth based on interpretation only one of us is right. If there is more than one interpretation derived from the Bible from prayerful reading then someone is wrong. But every denomination thinks it is right which deny’s truth.

As a Catholic I believe the Bible is God’s Word and see multiple truths as blasphemy. That is where I feel people disrespect the Bible by self interpretation to their own opinions.
Truth is not opinion.

God Bless
Scylla
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Christians are dead to sin read what Peter says about it: (2 Peter 2:20-22)”and anyone who has escaped the pollution of the world once by coming to know the Lord and savior Jesus Christ, and who then allows himself to be entangled by it a second time and mastered, will end up in a worse state than he began in.”

Also Paul:(1 Corinthians 5:11) “What I wrote was that you should not associate with a brother Christian who is leading an immoral life, or is a usurer, or idolatrous, or a slanderer, or a drunkard or is dishonest; you should not even eat a meal with people like that.”

(Romans 6: 10 - 11) “When He died, He died, once for all, to sin, so His life now is life with God; and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God

(Hebrews 10:26-31) “If, after we have been given knowledge of the truth, we should deliberately commit any sins, then there is no longer any sacrifice for them. There will be left only the dreadful prospect of judgment and of the raging fire that is to burn rebels. Anyone who disregards the Law of Moses is ruthlessly put to death on the word of two witnesses or three; and you may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far severer punishment. We are all aware who it was that said: Vengeance is mine; I will repay. And again: The Lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Some more of John:
(1 John 3: 3 - 9) “Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ. Any one who sins at all breaks the law, because to sin is to break the law. Now you know that He appeared in order to abolish sin, and that in Him there is no sin; anyone who lives in God does not sin, and anyone who sins has never seen Him or known Him. My children do not let anyone lead you astray; to live a holy life is to be holy just as He is holy; to lead a sinful life is to belong to the Devil, since the Devil was a sinner from the beginning. It was to undo all that the Devil has done that the Son of God appeared. No one who has been begotten by God sins: because God’s seed remains inside him, he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God.”

(1 John 5: 16) “If anybody sees his brother commit a sin that is not a deadly sin, he has only to pray, and God will give life to the simmer - not those who commit a deadly sin; for there is a sin that is death, and I will not say that you must pray about that. Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, but not all sin is deadly.

We know that anyone who has been begotten by God does not sin, because the begotten Son of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.” So then, brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.”
 
Giver said:
(Mark 9:38 – 40) “John said to Him, ‘Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him’. But Jesus said, ‘you must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is

(Acts 2:46) “They went as a body to the Temple every day but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously they praised God.”

(1 Peter 2:9) “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”

Now if we are royal priest as Peter said and the early Christians went to their homes to receive the Eucharist, and Jesus said even if people were not part of the main group they were for Him, and Jesus said (John 6:53) “Jesus replied: ‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man ad drink his blood, you will not have life in you,” So do you really believe Jesus would let some one who was with Him not have life in him? Also it just doesn’t make sense to say that a Spirit filled person could ask Jesus to change bread and wine into His Body and blood and He would refuse the request.

(Hebrews 10:19-22) “In other words, brothers, through the blood of Jesus we have the right to enter the sanctuary, by a new way which he has opened for us, a living opening through the curtain, that is to say, his body. And we have the supreme high priest over all the house of God. So as we go in, let us be sincere in heart and filled with faith, our minds sprinkled and free from any trace of bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

(In the OT only the priest could enter the sanctuary. Now, because we are all priest we can all enter
Giver
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Here is a little homework for you…

In the OT there is a story of the death of those who tried to assume the authority and responsibilities of the MINISTERIAL priesthood. They and their followers incurred death.

In the NT, (hint: Jude), the early Church members are again admonished for this same error/mistake/act-of-arrogance of trying to assume - as members of the Royal Priesthood - the authority and the responsibilities of the MINISTERIAL priesthood. They are warned that they will incure the same fate.

I first encourage you to study this… then ask you not to make the same mistake again.
 
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josephdavid:
Not so. There are Progressive Catholics haha… Joking. Either you are in union with the Holy Catholic Church or you are not. If you are not then you are Protestant.
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The generally accepted division is threefold: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. The Orthodox are not Protestants and do not come from the Protestant “tradition” of a mixture of sola scripture, private judgement, sola fide, etc. (though not all Protestants adhere to all elements). “Giver” would appear to be some kind of Protestant, though he doesn’t know it.
 
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Giver:
As I have said I know that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus.

I am not a protestant so I can’t speak for their ministers.
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so… HOW is the Eucharist, which is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ confected?
 
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Giver:
The Ten Commandments were from the Old Law and before Jesus come.

Hmmm!!!
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so… where are they refuted in the NT??

is worship (1st C) no longer meant for God alone?

can we now steal, fornicate, covet…??

Jesus came to fulfull “… and He went back and was subject to them…”
 
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MrS:
Here is a little homework for you…

In the OT there is a story of the death of those who tried to assume the authority and responsibilities of the MINISTERIAL priesthood. They and their followers incurred death.

In the NT, (hint: Jude), the early Church members are again admonished for this same error/mistake/act-of-arrogance of trying to assume - as members of the Royal Priesthood - the authority and the responsibilities of the MINISTERIAL priesthood. They are warned that they will incure the same fate.

I first encourage you to study this… then ask you not to make the same mistake again.
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Wow! I Quote Peter and you are telling me I am an irreligious sinner, mischief-maker, grumbler governed only by my desires, with mouths full of boastful talk, ready with flattery for other people when they see some advantage in it?
 
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Giver:
The Ten Commandments were from the Old Law and before Jesus come.

Hmmm!!!
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Mark 10:17ff

A man ran up and knelt before [Jesus], and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, . . . You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’"
 
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mercygate:
Mark 10:17ff

A man ran up and knelt before [Jesus], and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, . . . You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’"
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Jesus hadn’t died yet. Now all honor and glory belongs to our Lord and God Jesus.
 
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Giver:
Jesus hadn’t died yet. Now all honor and glory belongs to our Lord and God Jesus.
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What does that have to do with Jesus telling the young man to observe the Commandments, which you claim are abrogated by the new covenant? Since the commandments in question are fundamentally moral, rooted in natural law, they are not “revokable” as are the commandments of the ceremonial law. The New Covenant does not introduce the right to kill, steal and covet.
 
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