Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church - Holy Orders

Holy Orders

Where ordination, the priesthood, the episcopacy, and the Papacy are concerned, the ALCC rejects the teachings of Lutheranism and accepts all Roman Catholic teachings. 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. All ordinations and re-ordinations - without exception - 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 Roman Missal (Third Edition) or the Mass from the Roman Catholic Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship exclusively, with no additions or deletions apart from the deletion of the celibacy vow in the diaconal ordination rite, 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 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 in 2004 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 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, 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 and the blessing of same-sex unions, permitting neither.