THE IGLESIA NI CRISTO CALLS ERAÑO G. MANALO FATHER

Article Originally Posted at KNOW THE TRUTH by Atty. MARWIL N. LLASOS, OP

The Iglesia ni Cristo “Pope”: “Tatay” Erdie

The Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) is mad as hell against the Catholic Church which they consider to be an apostate Church. INC ministers routinely attack Catholics for calling the Pope and the priests “father.” They charge that the Pope makes himself equal with God because he allows himself to be called “father.” The INC, of course, bases its misplaced arguments on Matthew 23:9 which says, “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven” (NIV).

But, as usual, the INC is hypocritical. While the INC slams the Catholic Church for calling its Pope and priests as “father,” nevertheless, INC members call their late Executive Minister Eraño G. Manalo as “tatay.”

Hypocrisy: The Iglesia ni Cristo denounces Catholics for calling
the Pope and priests “father,” yet they call their late Executive
Minister as “tatay” – which means “father.” Screen shot used with
permission from The Splendor of the Church Facebook page)

What does “tatay” mean?

Tagalog.Dictionary.Com defines “tatay” as:[1]

Tatay

t´atay n. father (term of address and reference)

Related:

father

father n. 1 male parent: ama 2 col- loquial term used by children, etc.: tatay, itay, tatang, 3 religious term: padre, pari

Like the Greek word pappas or the Latin term papa,[2] the Tagalog word tatay is a term of endearment used by children to address their father. It has the same meaning as the Aramaic word abba[3] – in English, daddy.[4]

INC members do not only consider or treat the late Eraño G. Manalo as father,[5] but they call him as such – Tatay Erdie. This once again shows the INC’s double standard and rank hypocrisy. I thought Matthew 23:9 prohibits calling any man on earth “father.” Yet, the Iglesia ni Cristo calls Eraño G. Manalo with the very same title the Lord Jesus taught us to call God, Abba (Lk. 11:2) – Daddy – Tatay.

Tatay means Daddy: What’s so hard to understand about this?

The INC condemns Catholics for calling the Pope and priests father, yet they do the same thing to their Executive Minister.

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (Rom. 2:1, NIV).

Character actor John Regala called the late
INC Executive Minister “Tatay Erdy” when he was still an INC

Iglesia ni Cristo members greet the late Eraño Manalo “happy birthday.”
Here an INC member called the dead birthday celebrant “Tatay.”

Calling the late Eraño Manalo Tatay is not an isolated
incident among the members of the Iglesia ni Cristo.
Here you can see how the INC addresses its late Executive
Minister with “We love you, Tatay.”

More and more INC members call the dead Eraño Manalo
“Tatay.” What happened to Matthew 23:9 among the INC?

[1] http://www.tagalog-dictionary.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?s=tatay

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope

[3] http://biblehub.com/greek/5.htm

[4]http://tagaloglang.com/Tagalog-English-Dictionary/English-Translation-of-Tagalog-Word/tatay.html

[5] http://www.pep.ph/news/23034/Former-actress-Klaudia-Koronel-grieves-the-death-of-INC_