Heard A New One Tonight

[Jake Huether]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 28 2004, 02:05 AM'] I have trouble with this title as well, its very borderline.

I think the correct rendering is 'holy father' not Holy Father. Much like the same applies to God. You right God, and Lord instead of god or lord to emphasize the Divinity & Holiness. But still the title is disturbing. [/quote]
But really, then, it's just an issue of context. And Catholics know that, in context, when we hear Holy Father it is refereing to either the Pope or God the Father. If it is in reference to the Pope, Catholics know that it isn't God the Father. And if it is in reference to God, Catholics know that it isn't the Pope. So if we know the difference, and Catholics don't believe that God the Father is the Pope or vise versa, then what's the big deal??

God is jealous only when we put someone above Him, or equal to Him, in authority and majesty. He is jealous when we break the first commandment. He isn't jealous because of a title.

Arguing this point is a weak attempt at trying to prove the Catholic Church wrong. It's just silly.

[MorphRC]

Still. It shouldnt be a name. Whether your catholic or not. Pope, Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, whats wrong with those, you have to go call yourself holy father. I dont remember that in scripture, or the Didache, or other non-canonical works.

[Jake Huether]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 28 2004, 08:23 AM'] Still. It shouldnt be a name. Whether your catholic or not. Pope, Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, whats wrong with those, you have to go call yourself holy father. I dont remember that in scripture, or the Didache, or other non-canonical works. [/quote]
You said, "holy father. I don't remember that in scripture...."

But meanwhile you say, "Pope, Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, whats wrong with those"


Yet, neither Pope, Bishop of Rome or Successor of St. Peter are in scripture either.

So, if you don't like "holy father" because its not in scripture, why are the other titles okay?

Honestly, your credibility is hindered when you make comments like this.

Should we not call ourselves sons of God, since Jesus is THE Son of God?

A title is merely a title. It describes only a certain aspect of a person, not their entire Being. And unless you can prove Pope John Paul II, and all his predecessors, weren't fathers and weren't holy, then you should submit that this title is fitting.


It is a stumbling block for you since you were raised calling God, Holy Father. And to hear someone else called by that title makes you feel uneasy. But for Catholics it is merely etiquette. We know the Pope isn't God. We know that our Heavenly Father isn't the Pope. The fact is, there is no such place in Holy Scripture that reserves this title for God. The only title reserved for God is that, God. I still am uneasy calling certain people Jesus (a popular hispanic name). But I know they aren't God's only Son. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, not because He is Jesus, but because He is the Christ.


The Pope is called the Holy Father because he leads the Holy Catholic Church on earth. He is the Rock - the anchor of the Church. He has the God given responsibility to father 1 billion + Catholics. He is holy and he is a father. He isn't God.

[MorphRC]

you know what i was referring to with the holy father thing, im sure i dont need to explain things in a simplistic sense for u

[Jake Huether]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 28 2004, 09:10 AM'] you know what i was referring to with the holy father thing, im sure i dont need to explain things in a simplistic sense for u [/quote]
Actually, quite honestly, I guess I don't know what you meant then... Can you please explain things in the simplistic sense...


Even so, what do you think of the latter part of my post?? Why make this a stumbling block? If you know that Catholics know that the pope isn't God, then what's the big deal about using the title "holy father". If it is a stumbling block for you, maybe it's something that you need to work out - not necessarily something that the Church needs to change..

[Aloysius]

There's Jesus' prayer for unity, saying that we should be one just as He is one with THE HOLY FATHER.

Hmm... how is it that then Catholics are one with the Holy Father, The Pope, in imitation of the Holy Trinity. Seems to me we're living out His prayer. He prays that we be one in the same way He is one with His Father. We have an earthly figure that mirrors that. Jesus is co-equal to the Father and one with the Father. I and the Pope are both human beings, we're co-equal, and we're one in the sense that the Pope's leadership keeps the Church together.

Heavenly Holy Father -------One With Jesus
Earthly Holy Father----------One with Jesus' people, as Jesus Himself prayed we be one

[MorphRC]

...........whatever.............

[phatcatholic]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 29 2004, 02:32 AM'] ...........whatever............. [/quote]
morph,

ur difficulty w/ this subject seems to signify your overall trouble w/ aligning your spirit w/ what you know to be true. (i hope i'm not being to presumptuous--you identified this as the reason you left the Church)

just pray about it..........pray that your heart will be softened and more open to God's Church and His Will for your life.

i say this out of love and consideration for you.

pax christi,
phatcatholic

[MorphRC]

not presumptuous..thats partly the reason..

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 28 2004, 05:05 AM'] I have trouble with this title as well, its very borderline.

I think the correct rendering is 'holy father' not Holy Father. Much like the same applies to God. You right God, and Lord instead of god or lord to emphasize the Divinity & Holiness. But still the title is disturbing. [/quote]
It has absolutely nothing to do with equating the Pope with God, it has everything to do with being grammatically correct. For example, if your name was George, I would capitalize the G as I have just done, I would not make the g lowercase because that is not grammatically correct. So too with calling the Holy Father the Holy Father, that is his "name" in the proper sense. In this sense, we are merely arguing semantics and nothing more.

God Bless

[phatcatholic]

plus, titles are always capitalized

[Apotheoun]

I agree with "Theologian in Training" and "Phatcatholic" that the Pope's title "Holy Father," as a proper noun, must be capitalized, because to fail to do so is improper English grammar.

I found an article that elucidates this title of the Pope and I am posting it here for those who are interested:


[b]The Appropriateness of the Title of Holy Father[/b]
[i]by Archbishop Jean-Claude Perisset, the Apostolic Nuncio to Romania.[/i]

When confronted with the title of "Holy Father" to speak of the Pope or to address him, the first reaction is often to have recourse to the word of Christ in His invective against the Pharisees: "And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Mt 23:9).

The commentary of the Jerusalem Bible says that Matthew 23:8-12 are "addressed to the disciples alone and probably did not belong originally to this discourse"; the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible makes it more precise: "These verses do not forbid the disciples to exercise a ministry of teacher or catechist, but to usurp an authority which belongs only to Christ and to God." The conclusion of this passage is important: "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant" (MT 23:11).

We must situate, then, the word of Christ in its context, concerning the use of titles given to teachers, physicians and other fathers, a usage which ran the risk of obfuscating the source of all wisdom and fatherhood: God. Jesus said to the apostles, after washing their feet, "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am" (Jn 13:13).

St. Paul will make use of the term in his First Letter to the Corinthians, whom he admonishes like a father, because their behavior does not conform sufficiently to the teaching he gave them, and so he says: "For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (4:15).

And so, it is within an "ecclesial" context, in reference to the mission proper to one who exercises evangelical fatherhood, in the spiritual order, that it is necessary to consider the use of the term "father" for those who in the Church have a special mission of spiritual "generation," in regard to teaching, sanctifying, gathering together the community of believers. Besides, the primitive Church had no difficulty in living this reality. St. Jerome (342-420) wrote that, in the monasteries of Palestine and Egypt, the monks addressed one another with the title of "father."

For the Sovereign Pontiff, Successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome, the title of Father is especially apt. The attribution "holy," in the expression "Holy Father," does not have a primarily moral content to it, in the sense of identifying the Pope with a saint canonically recognized as such. For Popes, too, the process of canonization is required, in order to propose them as "saints" for the veneration of the faithful. The term "saint" has reference, above all, to the practice of the primitive Church in calling "saint" every member of the Christian community" (see Acts 9:13: Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2; Col 1:2).

[i]As we have seen at the outset of our historical review, the expression "Holy Father" means:[/i]

1. On the part of the faithful, a filial, loving relationship, which recognizes in the one so addressed or spoken to, a mission of spiritual fatherhood, expressing that of God toward us, in the threefold charge confided to the Church of preaching the Good News of salvation, of sanctifying the believers, and of gathering together the dispersed children of God. This is a special and supreme responsibility of the Pope in the Church's threefold mission of teaching, governing and sanctifying, as Prophet, Priest and Shepherd.

2. On the part of the one who is so designated, the responsibility to live this mission in perfect conformity to the will of Christ, "the Holy One of God," to live what God already asked of His People through Moses: "Be holy, for I am holy" (Lv 11:44; 19:2).

It concerns, then, a fatherhood exercised in the name of God, from Whom "all fatherhood takes its name, both in heaven and on earth" (Eph 3:15), and from which the opening hymn of the Letter to the Ephesians (1:3-14) places the origin, while the verses 15-23 express how this fatherhood should be actualized in the apostolic ministry.

The qualifier "holy" underlines the spiritual dimension of this fatherhood exercised in the name of God; and we have already said that it does not imply a moral judgment on the person of the Pope. The expression "Holy Father" was born in the time of the controversy over lay investiture, and it seemed normal that in its becoming common usage in the acts of the chancery, the Roman Curia had then wished to underscore the spiritual and supernatural level of the mission of the Pope by adding the adjective "holy" — to defend implicitly the superiority of papal power over imperial power.

[i]We can apply analogically some elements relevant to the Person of the Father in the heart of the Trinity, to His being and action.[/i]

1. [i]The Father as the Source of Trinitarian Life[/i]: One can think that the mission of the Pope as the visible center of the unity of the Church of Christ—"You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." —follows on (not without reason) his profession of faith: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (MT 16:16), and to the statement of Christ: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father Who is in heaven" (MT 16:17).

Hence this mission has its origin in the action of the Father, and I dare say that it places Peter in a situation of particular responsibility vis-a-vis the Father to validate this revelation. The ministry of the Pope to confirm his brethren in the faith — that is to say, to make them share the revelation which he received from the Father — is then seen as a privileged manifestation of the presence of the Father in the world. To be sure, it is Christ Who "makes the Father seen" according to the word to Philip, "he who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:9); but the Holy Father, as successor of Peter, has an entirely special role to the mission of the Son, as visible foundation of the Church. The source of the faith is not Peter, but the Father; Peter—the Pope — is the support here below.

As Pope John Paul says in the encyclical Ut Unum Sint ("That They All May Be One"), this mission needs the support of Christ, for Peter is weak, having denied his Master: "The Pope depends totally on the grace and prayer of the Lord: I have prayed' (Lk 22:32)" (no. 4). In this mission of witnessing to Christ, the Son of the living God, the Holy Father knows that he finds the source of this mission near the Father.

The Pope is the visible "principle" of ecclesial communion, insofar as he is the center of unity, like the Father, the principle of Trinitarian communion. The difference is that ecclesial communion does not come from the Pope, but from Christ through the Holy Spirit. A dispute exists among canonists regarding the origin of the jurisdiction of bishops, with some maintaining that it comes from the Pope who entrusts a mission or who accords communion to a chosen bishop. For my part, I prefer to see this origin of jurisdictional or governing power in the sacramental ordination of the bishop, the canonical mission having for its effect merely the determination of its field of application. Jurisdictional communion with the center of unity of the college of bishops, the Pope, gives to the bishop the ecclesial fullness willed by Christ for his mission of governance and his mission of structuring ecclesial communion.

2. [i]The Father as the End of Our Journey[/i]: The whole mission of the Son consists in handing over to the Father the reconciled world, for "when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him Who put all things under Him, that God may be everything to every one" (1 Cor 15:28), because "then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power" (1 Cor 15:24). Under this aspect, then, the mission of the Son is accomplished in submission to the Father; the work of the Son aims at the full accomplishment of the will of the Father. Therefore, the mission of the Pope, visible foundation of the one and unique Church of Christ, is completely geared toward the realization of this will of the Father.

Also, in calling the Pope "Holy Father," we speak implicitly of this eschatological dimension of his charge, and we commit ourselves to enter into this reconciliation or submission of all things to Christ Who, at the end of time, will submit them to His Father. We shall be aided in this by the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, lived as a year of reconciliation of humanity with God. This is why, "the sense of being on a 'journey to the Father' should encourage everyone to undertake, by holding fast to Christ the Redeemer of man, a journey of authentic conversion" (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, no. 50). Furthermore, this knowledge of the Father and that of Christ as "Son of the living God" and Redeemer of man, is the principal object of this conversion, according to the very word of Jesus: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3).

3. [i]The Father as the Center of Unity of the Family[/i]: The father is the one with whom each of his sons or daughters has a fundamentally equal relationship. It is the father who makes the unity of the family—with the mother, who certainly shares parental responsibility with him.

The expression "father" for the bishop has precisely the sense of speaking of the unity of the community of believers. The decree of the Second Vatican Council Christus Dominus (on the pastoral responsibility of bishops) echoes this: "In exercising his office of father and pastor, the bishop should be with his people as one who serves, as a good shepherd who knows his sheep--He should so unite and mold his flock into one family that all, conscious of their duties, may live and act in the communion of charity" (no. 16).

How much more this is true of the Pope who "as pastor of all the faithful, his mission is to promote the common good of the universal Church and the particular good of all the churches. He is therefore endowed with the primacy of ordinary power over all the churches" (no. 2), for "the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful" (Lumen Gentium, no. 23).

In this context, it is interesting to note that in his addresses to bishops, the Pope calls them "brothers," while the bishops call the Pope "Father." There is no contradiction here, if one takes into account the fact that each bishop shares with the Pope the care for all the churches, but all have in the successor of Peter their center of unity (see LG, nos. 22-23). Whence the particular relationship of all in regard to the Pope, recognized as the center of unity like a father in a family; while calling them "brothers," the Pope wants to highlight not only his mission as "servant of the servants of God," but also the reality of the "college of bishops", of which he is, while the center of unity, more than just a primus inter pares ("first among equals").

On behalf of the faithful, the Holy Father truly exercises his paternal role, in bringing together the multitudes by his audiences, celebrations and apostolic visits throughout the whole world. While our "thronging" society tends to leave each person in his own solitude, even when he finds himself in a crowd at a concert or sporting event, in a large department store or on boulevards, the presence of the Holy Father uniting thousands of the faithful for a Mass or thousands of youths for an encounter gives to each the sense that he or she belongs to the Church as a family of disciples of Christ; it spurs each on in his own proper mission within the bosom of the Church; it reassures each in his attachment to Christ, confirming him in his faith.

4. [i]Holy Father and Vicar of Christ[/i]: Christ has no other mission than to lead to the Father; "My food is to do the will of Him Who sent me, and to accomplish His work" (Jn 4:34); "for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him Who sent me" (Jn 6:38). It is within this filial relationship of the Son to the Father that is inscribed the mission of the Pope, as pastor of the universal Church. The Son does not concentrate the attention of His disciples on Himself, but He orients them to the Father. That is why Christianity is a "filial" religion; there is its uniqueness-in the relationship of the human being with divinity. No other religion has this characteristic, even if certain ones express divinity sometimes-God for Judaism and Islam-in some terms which speak of fatherhood. In Christianity, it is not only the community as a whole which has a filial relationship with God but each one of its members. St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face is a magnificent example of this, and it is not without supernatural reason that at the end of our century she has been proclaimed "Doctor of the Church" for her teaching on spiritual childhood, because our society is a "society without a father." Likewise, every activity of the members of the Church, and especially that of the Pope, bears this filial mark.

Whence the mission of the Holy Father as Vicar of Christ, to "do the will of Him Who sent [Him]" and, like Christ, not to have any other food than the will of the Father. Certainly, there are dangers on our side of making the Pope a screen between God and us, of allowing us to be carried away by curiosity and the externals of his mission, to see him without listening to him, to have a photograph at his side without seeing Christ, whose Vicar he is, and forgetting the teaching of Christ, which he does not cease to give us through his encyclicals, apostolic letters, initiatives, apostolic visits, etc. The title "Holy Father" must propel us more directly toward the Father of heaven, the Father of mercies, the Father of lights, as the Pope does in receiving every person who desires to meet him, in going out toward those who wish to receive him, in not ceasing to make resound the message of Christ for all, a message which comes from the Father and leads to the Father.

This attitude of the Pope, in fact, appears through the episcopal mottoes of the last popes: As for Pope Pius X: "To restore all things in Christ"; Pope Paul VI, "In the name of the Lord"; Pope John Paul II, "All yours"-that is to say, in reference to his Marian motto, "All yours, O Mary, to be like you, the servant of the Lord, the servant of God."


[b]Editor's note[/b]: [i]The above text is from a presentation made at an ecumenical gathering of Catholics and Orthodox at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Iasi, East Romania, and is translated from the French by Father Peter Stravinskas[/i].

[phatcatholic]

here is the link for the article above:

--http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=2762

i have likewise added it to the "Holy Orders and the Priesthood" entry

pax christi,
phatcatholic

[luciana]

[quote]Editor's note: The above text is from a presentation made at an ecumenical gathering of Catholics and Orthodox at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Iasi, East Romania, and is translated from the French by Father Peter Stravinskas. [/quote]

This was a pretty gutsy presentation for Archbishop Jean-Claude Perisset, the Apostolic Nuncio to Romania, to give at this gathering.

What do t he Orthodox call their Patriarchs?

[MorphRC]

I dont agree with it anyways. My choice.