"ghostly father" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ghostly fathers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "ghostly father (plural ghostly fathers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Roman Catholicism",
          "orig": "en:Roman Catholicism",
          "parents": [
            "Catholicism",
            "Christianity",
            "Abrahamism",
            "Religion",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1625, Louis of Granada, translated by Richard Hopkins, A Memoriall of a Christian Life […], page 184",
          "text": "Therfore I saye, that a general confession only in saying to a Ghostly Father, I am a sinner without specifying the deadly sinnes in particular, is no sufficient knowledge for the Ghostly Father to iudge rightly of euery sinner, that demandeth absolution of him, whose sinnes are to be remitted, and whose sinnes are to be retained.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1680, The Papists bloody Oath of Secrecy […] ; republished as Samuel Johnson, William Oldys, editors, The Harleian Miscellany […], volume 7, 1746, page 274",
          "text": "About the latter End of January, 1676, Thomas Thwing, a Priest, and William Rushton, another Popish Priest, who was my ghostly Father, came to my House at Shippon Hall, in Yorkshire […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1741, Charles Gobinet, The Instruction of Youth in Christian Piety […], volume 1, page 172",
          "text": "The second remedy is frequent confession to a discreet ghostly father.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "confessor (priest who hears one’s confessions)"
      ],
      "id": "en-ghostly_father-en-noun-vptSwSaF",
      "links": [
        [
          "Roman Catholicism",
          "Roman Catholicism"
        ],
        [
          "confessor",
          "confessor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, Roman Catholicism) confessor (priest who hears one’s confessions)"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "Catholicism",
        "Christianity",
        "Roman-Catholicism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ghostly father"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "ghostly fathers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "ghostly father (plural ghostly fathers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Roman Catholicism"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1625, Louis of Granada, translated by Richard Hopkins, A Memoriall of a Christian Life […], page 184",
          "text": "Therfore I saye, that a general confession only in saying to a Ghostly Father, I am a sinner without specifying the deadly sinnes in particular, is no sufficient knowledge for the Ghostly Father to iudge rightly of euery sinner, that demandeth absolution of him, whose sinnes are to be remitted, and whose sinnes are to be retained.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1680, The Papists bloody Oath of Secrecy […] ; republished as Samuel Johnson, William Oldys, editors, The Harleian Miscellany […], volume 7, 1746, page 274",
          "text": "About the latter End of January, 1676, Thomas Thwing, a Priest, and William Rushton, another Popish Priest, who was my ghostly Father, came to my House at Shippon Hall, in Yorkshire […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1741, Charles Gobinet, The Instruction of Youth in Christian Piety […], volume 1, page 172",
          "text": "The second remedy is frequent confession to a discreet ghostly father.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "confessor (priest who hears one’s confessions)"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Roman Catholicism",
          "Roman Catholicism"
        ],
        [
          "confessor",
          "confessor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, Roman Catholicism) confessor (priest who hears one’s confessions)"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "Catholicism",
        "Christianity",
        "Roman-Catholicism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ghostly father"
}