When addressing a Catholic Priest, I refer to him as:

Sir
Like any other man.

 

I try to call them as their tradition calls them. I know of a number of IFB pastors I would not call "Reverend". They would be offended. I would have no trouble referring to a Catholic or Episcopal priest as "Father". It is their title.
The verse about calling no man father is about a concept, not about a particular English word translated from Greek.

Karen

 

When I was in Bible school, I went to a Catholic Beer Blast/Fund-Raising Festival which was open to the public, to pass out tracts.

When the priest saw me and my friends, he asked us to leave and we did. When we got off St. Anne's property, an emissary of the priest asked us to come back, saying that the police wanted to talk to us.

We complied and were then accosted by a State Highway Patrol Captain, who identified himself as a Southern Baptist.

He got in our face and threatened to throw us in jail for trespassing after we were asked to leave.

Normally I am easy-going but this seemed like intentional harassment to me so I got in his face and told him to keep a civil tongue in his head - that we did leave when asked and only came back on the property at the request of the priest.

Captain "I'm a Southern Baptist" then calmed down considerably, apologized and said we were free to go.

The head of the school where I was studying the Bible was met at the airport by a delegation from St. Anne's, Catholic Church, when he arrived home from a weekend revival.

Boy oh boy, was he mad!

He called us into his office and told us he didn't like being met at the airport by a bunch of angry Catholics who accused us of messing up their church event and we had to apologize to the priest and get him to accept our apology or he would kick us out of Bible School.

So we went and talked to "Father" Lecari and apologized for passing out tracts at his St. Anne's Roundup.

None of us addressed his as "Father" - we called him "Sir" and "Mr." Lecari and one brother called him "Rev." Lecari.

The priest got angry when someone addressed him as "Mr." Lecari and replied that he was a Catholic priest and the proper way to address him was "Father."

At the conclusion of the session, he told us he accepted our apology, and raised his hand - to bless us, I guess.

One of our guys who had passed out tracts and apologized, shrank back and threw up his hands as if to protect himself when Pastor Lecari lifted his hand to "bless" us.

Pastor Lecari was startled by the reaction and asked, 'What's wrong?'

David, our fellow tract passer exclaimed, 'Don't put none of that stuff on me!'

Pastor Lecari - 'But I was just going to bless you.'

David - 'Well, we don't need your blessing...'

And we parted company.

I NEVER address a Roman Priest as "Father". To do so, in my estimation, acknowledges his false religious system, with its false doctrines, such as the priest's alleged ability to forgive sins and transform wine and bread into the body and blood of Christ, as legitimate.

I can treat a priest with common courtesy and respect without calling him "Father".

 

You would be surprized at just how many dont, I have a friend who pastors a very small church (4 active members when they started last Feb. grown now to 50 Praise God.)in up state N.Y., He tells me that these people will stand in church talking to him and use curse words as if it was no big deal. He would explain to them thats no way to talk any time much less in church but it just keeps going on.