Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church - Doctrine

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 Martin Luther's attempt to start a renewal movement within Roman Catholicism slipped out of his control. 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.

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church accepts the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, and Martin Luther's Small Catechism, but only insofar as they are in full 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—but only insofar as they are in full agreement with Roman Catholic faith, order, doctrines and traditions. It does not accept the Formula of Concord on any level, nor is it bound by any of its terms and provisions, though it does respect it as a historical Lutheran document.

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 Newman in Tracts for the Times (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); 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, 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, a legally binding contract requiring the signatories not to teach, preach, write, or publish anything contrary to the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church accepts Papal primacy and Papal infallibility even though it is not under papal control at this time.

The ALCC 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 Vatican II document, The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation - Dei Verbum and the Pontifical Biblical Commission's document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.