
The verse goes thus: "And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." But if we look at the context of the verse, Jesus is having to deal with the Pharisees who are so puffed up with their own importance that they have failed to recognize their Messiah. As Sebastian Fama notes, we have to take this context into account as well as this verse by Paul:
"I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:14-15).
Fama also notes that if you follow this unsound Protestant logic, we cannot call our ministers pastors ( pastor = Latin wordfor "shepherd") since Christ also said "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd." John 10:14-16 If there's only one shepherd, we shouldn't be calling others shepherds, eh?
Furthermore, if we take Christ too literally, following this logic to its end rather than stopping with the conclusion "Catholicism Are Bad," we will see that it would also imply we cannot call our physical fathers "Father" or refer to them as such either. That could make legal documentation of your parentage very difficult indeed.
No, we need to look at the context, and realize that Christ is saying we should not place importance in titles except in so far as they help us to know our heavenly Father better.
And so I come to the conclusion that I should learn about these ancient Church Fathers as (among other things) one way to know my heavenly Father through his saints.