Vultus Christi

"Did it never occur to you that we call the Pope Holy Father because we think of him as our father? That the unity of the Church is not the unity of a machine but the unity of a great family? That our obedience to the Holy Father in that very limited range of affairs in which he demands our obedience is not that of a workman towards the foreman who will sack him if he doesn't work, but is that of children towards their father — each eager to outdo the others in showing affection; each eager to outstrip the others in anticipating hs slightest wish? That we obey him in effect not because we fear him as the doorkeeper of heaven, but because we love him as the shepherd of Christians, of Christ's flock?"

Monsignor Ronald Knox
University Sermons, 379