If they believe in God is the father, why do they call priests father when it explicitly says not to do that
Good question.
Jesus is not forbidding us to call men “fathers” who actually are such—either literally or spiritually. He is warning people against inaccurately attributing fatherhood—or a particular kind or degree of fatherhood—to those who do not have it.
This is seen in how Paul wrote “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 Cor. 4:14–15).
Also note that God is The Father. Your own father is well, father.
As seen in the Bible the concept of fatherhood is not restricted to just our earthly fathers and God. It is used to refer to people other than biological or legal fathers, and is used as a sign of respect to those with whom we have a special relationship.
For example, Joseph tells his brothers of a special fatherly relationship God had given him with the king of Egypt: “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:8).
Job indicates he played a fatherly role with the less fortunate: “I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know” (Job 29:16). And God himself declares that he will give a fatherly role to Eliakim, the steward of the house of David: “In that day I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah . . . and I will clothe him with [a] robe, and will bind [a] girdle on him, and will commit . . . authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah” (Isa. 22:20–21).
This type of fatherhood applies not only to those who are wise counselors (like Joseph) or benefactors (like Job) or both (like Eliakim); it also applies to those who have a fatherly spiritual relationship with one. For example, Elisha cries, “My father, my father!” to Elijah as the latter is carried up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kgs. 2:12). Later, Elisha himself is called a father by the king of Israel (2 Kgs. 6:21).
“If they believe in God is the father, why do they call priests father when it explicitly says not to do that”
Just curious, how do you refer to your father? As your “mother’s husband”? If you call him “father” aren’t you being a hypocrite then?
https://www.catholic.com/tract/call-no-man-father
Look! (Matthew 6:26)
I can (2 Corinthians 8:3)
claim (1 Corinthians 9:12)
everything (Ephesians 5:20)
I say (Galatians 1:9)
is based (Romans 10:5)
on (John 19:37)
Scripture (Luke 22:37)
also (Hebrews 2:4)
The Lord was not literally forbidding calling anyone master (Eph_6:9) /ruler/teacher or father, but in context it is a form of contrasting speech in reproving love of preeminence and titles:
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:10-12)
Aside from the fact that separate class of celibate (normatively) sacerdotal Catholic priesthood is Not that of the NT presbuteros (which was not even separate from episkopos), and that as a standard clerical title no one should be referred to a spiritual father unless they were (as Paul was to Timothy and to Onesimus, among multitude others) any more than I should call Mormon leaders "elders") es. at 70) and which Cath. priests can only imagine they are thru the damnable false premise of baptismal regeneration, then aside from all that, there is not actual argument against calling men spiritual fathers is in fact there are.
Perhaps this should be added to my list of distinctive Catholic teachings that are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).