Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church

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Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church
Classification Lutheran
Orientation Evangelical Catholic and Papalist
Polity Episcopal
Associations Augustana Evangelical Catholic Communion
Founder Irl A. Gladfelter
Origin 1997
Kansas City, Missouri
Branched from Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Merge of Athanasian Catholic Church of the Augsburg Confession
Lutherans of the United States
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The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church (ALCC), formerly the Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran (ECCL), is a church in the Lutheran Evangelical Catholic tradition. The ALCC claims to be unique among Lutheran churches in that it is of both Lutheran and Anglo-Catholic heritage and has also been significantly influenced by the traditions of Roman Catholicism. The church was founded in 1997 by former members of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Its headquarters are in Kansas City, Missouri.

Contents

[edit] Doctrine

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church considers Lutherans to be Catholics in a temporary, involuntary schism imposed on it by the Roman Catholic Church when Father Martin Luther's attempt to start a renewal movement within Roman Catholicism slipped out of his control.[1] The ALCC teaches that Lutheranism in general is a form of non-Roman Catholicism, and considers the other Lutheran churches to be "Protestant" only to the extent that they have accepted insights from the Calvinist and Zwinglian phases of the Reformation.[2]

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church accepts the unaltered Augsburg Confession,[3] the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, and Martin Luther's Small Catechism only insofar as they are in agreement with Roman Catholic faith and order, doctrines, and traditions. The ALCC recognizes the other documents contained in The Book of Concord—except for the Formula of Concord— only insofar as they accord with Roman Catholic faith, order, doctrines and traditions. It does not accept the Formula of Concord on any level, nor is it bound by its terms and provisions, though it does respect it as an historical Lutheran document.[4]

The ALCC has accepted major modifications in sacramental theology and principles of church government from the Church of Sweden (Lutheran), the Oxford Movement of the Anglican Communion, and the documents and teachings of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church which includes the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994).

The ALCC claims to be unique among Lutheran churches in that it accepts, as additional confessional documents, the Articles of Religion from the Book of Common Prayer as interpreted by John Henry Cardinal Newman in Tracts for the Times[5] (insofar as they do not conflict with authentic Catholic faith and tradition); the Roman Catholic–Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Augsburg, Germany, 1999);[6] the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and the documents and decrees of all Ecumenical Councils recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. The ALCC's strongest connections are with the Roman Catholic Church and some form of visible and corporate unity with that church is the ecumenical goal of the ALCC. Since June 2008, all clergy of the ALCC are required to sign a version of the Roman Catholic mandatum,[7] a legally binding contract requiring the signatories not to teach, preach, write, or publish anything contrary to the Roman Catholic magisterium.

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church accepts papal primacy and papal infallibility, but is not legally under papal authority at this time. It is theologically and socially conservative, with the same view of the nature and authority of scripture as the Roman Catholic Church as stated in the Pontifical Biblical Commission's document, The Interpretion of the Bible in the Church.[8]

[edit] Worship

The worship of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church is dignified and sacramental. It differs from other Lutheran churches by recognizing and celebrating the seven sacraments.[9] The primary liturgy of the ALCC is from the Book of Divine Worship, an Anglican Use book of rites authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. Any other rites approved and authorized for use by the appropriate Congregation of the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church are also used by ALCC clergy.[10]

[edit] Polity and organization

The polity of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church is episcopal rather than congregationalist and follows the model of the Roman Catholic Church. The ALCC is governed by a metropolitan archbishop assisted by a Vicar General and by the Holy Synod (which consists of the bishops of the church and is concerned with matters of doctrine and polity) and the National Standing Committee which includes lay members and is concerned with temporal administration and finance and together comprise the corporate Board of Directors. The ALCC operates in accordance with the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church[11] in areas not covered by its own canon law code.

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church has five archdioceses and one diocese in the United States, an archdiocese in Africa and two non-geographic archdioceses; one serving Sub-Saharan African immigrants in the United States and the other serving Vietnamese immigrants in the United States. The ALCC is organized and active in Canada, Germany, Sudan, and Kenya and is a member of the Augustana Evangelical Catholic Communion, the Sudanese Council of Churches USA and the Sudanese Council of Churches.

[edit] Holy Orders

Where ordination and the priesthood are concerned, the ALCC rejects the teachings of Lutheranism and accepts Roman Catholic teachings.[12] Other than not requiring celibacy of its clergy, there are no differences between the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and those of the ALCC regarding the Sacrament of Holy Orders.[13] All ordinations and re-ordinations—without exception—are performed using the rites of ordination (Ordinal) of the Roman Catholic Church, with the specific intention that ordination is into a sacrificing (sacerdotal) priesthood—a sacerdotium—instead of into a ministerium; admitting, both in theory and in practice, all that is involved in the Catholic doctrine of the sacerdotium. All ordinations are performed using the rites of ordination found in the most current edition of the ordinal from the pontifical of the Roman Catholic Church set within a celebration of the Mass of Pope Paul VI (Novus Ordo) or the Mass from the Roman Catholic Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship exclusively.

All clergy entering from other churches who have not been ordained in the historic apostolic succession must be re-ordained. The clergy of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church have all been ordained (or re-ordained) as deacons, priests and bishops in the historic apostolic succession, which it obtained from Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan, O.C.R. of the Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of the Americas and Archbishops Francis C. Spataro, O.C.R. and Paget E. J. Mack, O.S.B.M. of the Apostolic Episcopal Church. The ALCC's primary apostolic lineage is the Rebiban or Vatican succession, derived from the Roman Catholic Church through Archbishop Carlos Duarte Costa[14] and the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB). It also holds the Gerardus Gul lineage of the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands among several others.

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church has never had female clergy for the same reasons the Roman Catholic Church rejects the ordination of women,[15] and has placed a moratorium on the ordination of women until such time as it is ordered by a Pope (for the diaconate) or an Ecumenical Council (for the priesthood and episcopacy). The ALCC has the same policies as the Roman Catholic Church on the ordination of homosexual persons[16] and the blessing of same-sex unions,[17] permitting neither.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ "In its first phase, up to the Confession of Augsburg, which was the first synthesis of Lutheranism, Protestantism had no idea of developing into a church other than that of all time, the Catholic Church centered on the See of Rome." Louis Bouyer, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism 268 (Princeton, NJ: Scepter Publishers, 2001)(1956). "Luther's basic intuition [the gratuitousness of salvation], on which Protestantism continually draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being difficult to reconcile with Catholic tradition or inconsistent with the teaching of the apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching and is in the most direct line of that tradition. . . . Protestantism, reduced to what Protestants themselves regard as its essence, was under no necessity to embody itself in schism and heresy. . . . Considered in itself and in the natural course of its development, [the basic principle of the Reformation] does not lead to division and error. These are only the accidental results of the Reformation. . . . [T]he schisms and heresies of the sixteenth century resulted not from the initial impulse but from external and adventitious factors that disturbed its development." Id. at 62. See also Ells L. "Skip" Knox (Boise State University), "Martin Luther: Conclusions"; and Marius, Richard (1999). Martin Luther : the Christian between God and Death. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press. pp. 434, 434-435, 472, 474, 480, 483. ISBN 0-674-00387-X. 
  2. ^ See generally Pastor Zip's US Lutheran Web Links, "Evangelical Catholics."
  3. ^ For a discussion of prospects for some kind of Roman Catholic recognition of the Augsburg Confession, see Richard John Neuhaus, "Augsburg and Catholicism: Healing the Reformation Breach," Theology Today 37, no. 3 (Oct. 1980): 294–305. "In 1974 the idea was first advanced that the Roman Catholic Church should 'recognize' the Augsburg Confession. It received wider attention when Joseph Ratzinger, now Cardinal Archbishop of Munich, took up the possibility of a 'Catholic recognition of the Augsburg Confession or, more correctly, of recognizing the Augsburg Confession as Catholic.'" Neuhaus concluded: "There will be no one act of reunion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church; there will at some point be a favorable response from a Lutheran church or churches. With that initiating reunion, the situation of all of Lutheranism will have changed. Lutherans who then care to maintain fellowship with other Lutherans will be inclined, if not compelled, to act out the logic that is inherent in the already prevailing consensus that the interim church called Lutheran must pursue its destiny as a movement for all the church in the healing of the breach of the sixteenth century.” See also Paul A. Schreck, "Under one Christ: implications of a Roman Catholic recognition of the Confessio Augustana in C.E. 2017," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 43, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 90–110.
  4. ^ See ALCC website.
  5. ^ See John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles," Tracts for the Times, no. XC (1841).
  6. ^ See also Pope Benedict XVI, Address, The Doctrine of Justification: from Works to Faith (19 November 2008).
  7. ^ See United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Concerning the Academic Mandatum in Catholic Universities (Canon 812)—USCCB website
  8. ^ Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (March 18, 1994)—EWTN website
  9. ^ The Seven Sacraments—EWTN website
  10. ^ Catholic Rites and Churches—EWTN website
  11. ^ Code of Canon Law (1983)—Vatican website
  12. ^ The Sacrament of Holy Orders from the Catechism of the Catholic Church—Vatican website
  13. ^ The Sacrament of Holy Orders from the Catechism of the Catholic Church—Vatican website
  14. ^ See Episcopal Lineage of Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa
  15. ^ See, e.g., Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994)—Vatican website
  16. ^ See, e.g., Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders (2005)—Vatican website
  17. ^ Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons (2003)—Vatican website

[edit] Leadership

  • Irl A. Gladfelter, Metropolitan Archbishop of the ALCC; Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the West
  • Robert W. Edmondson, Vicar General of the ALCC, Office of the Metropolitan Archbishop; Archbishop of Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley; Director, Office for the Promotion of Christian Unity; Military Vicar of the ALCC
  • Tan Binh Phan Nguyen, Dean of the Holy Synod; Archbishop of the Southeast; Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Our Lady of La Vang; Metropolitan Pro Tempore for Southeast Asia, ALCC
  • Chaplen Luyimba Kweri, Archbishop of St. Benedict of Africa (U.S.); Archbishop Pro Tempore of All Africa; Metropolitan Pro Tempore for Africa
  • Raymond W. Copp, Archbishop for the Middle Atlantic States and New England
  • Edward J. Steele, Director of the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith; Bishop of Florida
  • Richard Stoecker, Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of the Middle Atlantic States and New England
  • Monsignor Terence Belcher Vicar General, Archdiocese of the West
  • Monsignor Thomas Stover, Vicar General for Minnesota and Wisconsin, Archdiocese of the West; Director of Evangelism and Church Growth, Office of the Metropolitan Archbishop
  • Monsignor Jens Bargmann, Vicar General for Europe

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Official websites

Doctrine

Liturgy and worship

General

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