“And call no man your Father upon earth;” because in this world though man begets man, yet there is one Father who created all men. For we have not beginning of life from our parents, but we have our life transmitted through them.
[ed. note: The Catholic doctrine is, that “the man” is born from his parents, by propagation, but that the soul is immediately created by God, the human agency being but a certain disposition of matter - such that according to God’s good pleasure, by a law which He has appointed, the gift of a soul is accorded to it. And thus, though a man’s soul cannot be called the son of his parents, yet that compound nature of which the soul forms part, is such.
That the soul is immediately from God by creation is the Catholic doctrine. St.
Leo speaks of the Catholic faith consistently and truly, preaching that the souls
of men, before they were breathed into their bodies, were not, nor are incorporated
by any other but by God the Framer, Who is Creator of them as well as the bodies.
Reproduced in full. Translation: Oxford 1841 (Newman), public domain (Public domain).