Catholic Rehab #1 – Our Father-

Attention all recovering Catholics – I’m here for you

Here we go again kids. I’ve been sitting on this for a while and it’s time. Catholics are notorious for not reading the Bible which explains why they won’t know some of the things I’m going to teach them through Catholic Rehab. I’ll keep all of these lessons short and limit them to one topic. If you want some prerequisite reading, check out these gems. My Soul According to Sister Simeon, Sister Isabella’s Gas Chamber, and 4 Things the Catholics Got Wrong

When I was in the first grade at Cathedral Grammar School in Boston, I decided that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. Admittedly, I was seduced by the robes, the cool pope hats, the chalice, and the performance that the priest gave as he engaged in the pagan ritual of the Catholic mass. I wanted to bless people and baptize babies. I wanted to be involved in all of it, but what I craved most was for everybody to call me “Father”, Father John. You know – like John the Baptist. Fortunately, that deluded fad wore off and as I became an adult and eventually distanced myself from the Catholic Church to the point of complete renunciation. Technically, that makes me an apostate and I’m going to hell. NOT!

For the last ten years, I have been called what some people refer to as a Bible thumper. I’ve been very active in church ministry, church outreach, and Bible study. However, it didn’t take me long for me to figure out that those Catholics sure got a bunch of stuff wrong – I mean a lot, so here we go.

Lesson 1 – You are not supposed to call a Catholic priest father – EVER! This is not my opinion. I didn’t hear it from some radical protestant preacher or pastor. I didn’t get it from some woke atheist. I got it directly from the mouth of Jesus.

Matthew 23:9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. This is directly from the mouth of Jesus and it is so straightforward and to the point that it is impossible to refute or debunk. What makes it even more egregious is the fact that this verse is in the Catholic Bible too. Catholics not knowing this is a direct result of them NOT reading the Bible and instead relying on Father MisleadsYou to….well….mislead you. Keep in mind that the Catholic Church used a Bible that was written in Latin until the early 70’s. Do YOU know how to read Latin? I didn’t think so. How can you study the word of God when it is written in a language you can’t speak or read? You can’t. Would you watch a foreign movie in a language you can’t speak with no subtitles? Didn’t think so. This was one of the main points of contention that Martin Luther, a Catholic priest who started the protestant church in 1517, had with the Catholic Church. He thought the Bible should be for everybody, and so did Jesus.

HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART. If you read Matthew 23:1-9 where Jesus was speaking about the Jewish religious leaders (the Sanhedrin) who expected to be placed above the common people, so he clearly was not talking about your birth father – he was talking about priests and other church leaders. In this capacity, the title of father is reserved for our father in heaven, not on Earth. So, to refer to a Catholic priest as a father is a form of blasphemy and a direct contradiction of a command given to us by Jesus Himself in 23:9. It’s even sadly comical to think that the first 6 words of the Lord’s prayer, a popular Catholic prayer is “our Father who art in heaven”, HELLO! This is not rocket science.

There it is. Short and simple. This is a starting point for a good study. Now, go read Matthew 23 and begin your rehab. Get a protestant study Bible and renounce the Catholic Church ruse.

If you are a recovering Catholic, I’d love to hear from you. I have worked in church ministry for the last 10 years dealing with people who are in all forms of recovery, especially recovering Catholics. You don’t have to live with Catholic guilt anymore. You don’t have to confess to a mortal ever again – go straight to Jesus. He is listening and He wants to hear from you. With every step you take toward Him, He will take two steps toward you. No Catholic priest, archbishop, or pope can compare. Do it, take that step.