Why do Catholics call priests Father when Jesus said Call no man father for you have but one father in heaven?

Answer 1

Catholic AnswerYour question reveals a protestant basis. First of all, the New Testament was written by the Church and put together at the end of the fourth century in an effort to evangelize people, it was never meant as a compendium of all doctrine. Secondly, you may never "proof text", in other words, you may never use a text out of context and attempt to prove something with it, alone and by itself. As the old saying goes, a text, without a context, is a pretext. In the final analysis, the entire Bible and the constant teaching of the Church for the past two thousand years is the context in which you must place any verse. At the very least, it must harmonize with all the other verses in The Bible. In this case, Our Blessed Lord is definitely not saying that you must never use the word "Father" to address another human being. We have examples all through the Bible, from the commandments when God, Himself, uses the word of human beings, to St. Paul using the word "Father" as applied to himself, so it is obvious this is not what Our Blessed Lord meant.

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from Radio Replies, by Fathers Rumble and Carty, 1942

380. Catholics call their Priest, "Father," yet Christ said, "Call no man your father upon earth." Matt. XXIII., 9

Your rigid interpretation would forbid your calling an earthly parent father. Yet God Himself, in the commandments, terms one of your parents father, and tells you to honor him as such. Your text means simply, "Call no one your father as if you had no other father with rights over you." That is, you must realize that all paternity is of God, and that you owe your being, and all that you have, including your earthly father, to Him. Nor can any claims of an earthly father avail against our duties to God, our heavenly Father. Meantime, Catholics do not call a Priest "Father" in the same sense as that in which they call God their Father. A Priest, by God's Providence and by the authority of Christ, is a father in the spiritual sense, just as natural parent is a father in an earthly sense. By administering Baptism he gives spiritual life to a soul; he nourishes that life by conferring the Sacraments; he warns, teaches, helps with his advice, corrects, and does all in the spiritual life that an earthly father does in the temporal order. So much so that St. Paul attributes a true paternity to himself, saying, "I admonish you as my dearest children . . . for in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you." 1 Cor. IV., 14.
We, Catholics, call priests "Father" because they are our spiritual fathers.

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Answer 2

because they don't read the bible!! lol