How doctrinally does the Anglican church feel we are wrong?

[Hawthorne]

:tiphat: Please clear this up for me. I have friends who are Episcopalian, and they tell me that they are “practically” Catholic, and that our similarities are greater than our differences. I know that, but where, exactly, does that faith feel the Catholic Church is wrong? I mean, what points of doctrine does the Anglican church hold us to be in error, and why? My friends themselves are not able to answer this question themselves well.

Any Anglicans out there?

 

[GKC]

:tiphat: Please clear this up for me. I have friends who are Episcopalian, and they tell me that they are “practically” Catholic, and that our similarities are greater than our differences. I know that, but where, exactly, does that faith feel the Catholic Church is wrong? I mean, what points of doctrine does the Anglican church hold us to be in error, and why? My friends themselves are not able to answer this question themselves well.

Any Anglicans out there?

It depends on which Anglicans you talk to. For some on the evangelical side, most of the Catholic distinctives, including those affirmed by the Anglo-Catholic side of Anglicanism, are suspect. For some Anglo-Catholics, it boils down to the role of the Pope, (supreme, with universal ordinary authority, or *primis inter pares *) and some doctrines which the RCC makes de fide, but which Anglicans see as pious opinion. The Assumption of the BVM, for example, or the precise definition of the “how” of the Real Presence (that is, transubstantiation).

GKC

Anglicanus Catholicus

 

[Hawthorne]

Thank you. You appear to be very knowledgeable on this. Can you point me to something I can read about these differences?

 

[oat_soda]

did anyone see the special by the history channel tonight? - they really ripped into him as a murderous glutton mad-man responsible for 10s of thousands of deaths in england.

i wonder how an anglican can stay an anglican with a founding father like him. it’s really sad that he shut down all of those monasteries and burned all of the countless middle aged manuscripts in some of them. england was a solid catholic country. now they think becket was one of the worse englishmen.

such a shame, especially considering the majority of the people didn’t want to be protestant and neither did henry the 8th!

 

[GKC]

Hawthorne:

Thank you. You appear to be very knowledgeable on this. Can you point me to something I can read about these differences?

You are welcome, and very kind. I wish I could. But it is hard to pin Anglicans down doctrinally. That’s another point of difference itself, the concept of authority. And then there is the fact that modern Anglicanism is not the same as classical Anglicanism. It’s a mess.

All the same, something like ROME AND CANTERBURY THROUGH FOUR CENTURIES/Arthur Vogel, might be useful. And perhaps a good general history of the Church of England, say, Moorman’s HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. Or maybe some of the publications of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), set up by Paul VI and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey.

Or, if you’re a real masochist, there’s the 10 volume DOGMATIC THEOLOGY by Frances Hall. But no matter what, you’ll find some Anglicans who disagree. Anglicans are like that. Always have been.

GKC

 

[Tonks40]

My husband, who is Anglican and marginal at best, also insists that there really is no difference between Anglicans and Catholics. They believe in the Immaculate Conception, but don’t hold her in the higher regard as Catholic, they believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, they do have the sacraments of Baptism, Communion and Confirmation, and their liturgies are very similiar to ours. They even have their own version of the Rosary. But even he cannot really define the doctrinal difference between the two.

I think it does come down to authority of the See of Peter, nothing more - tho I can be mistaken. The positions that the ECUSA and other Anglican churches in communion with the Church of England/Archbishop of Cantebury in regards to women priests, abortion, etc. are a result of not having their authority to turn to in matters of a doctrinal nature.

The way I put it - *soooo *close, yet so far!

 

[mercygate]

i wonder how an anglican can stay an anglican with a founding father like him. it’s really sad that he shut down all of those monasteries and burned all of the countless middle aged manuscripts in some of them. england was a solid catholic country. now they think becket was one of the worse englishmen.

such a shame, especially considering the majority of the people didn’t want to be protestant and neither did henry the 8th!

Anglicans tend to view Henry VIII just as Catholics view Pope Alexander VI. Anglicans do not applaud the dissolution of the monasteries, although they understand that the land and revenue they controlled amounted to something like half the GNP, and much of it left the country for Rome, so there were pressing economic issues.

Anglicans today think of Becket as a great English saint.

Anglicanism has been an excellent pipeline for souls on the journey to the fullness of Catholic faith. Thousands have come to the Catholic Church through Anglicanism by up-churching in small increments over a period of years. Anglicanism allows a full-blown, Bible-only Christian to mature by baby-steps into a full Catholic faith, both in externals and in subtance. At some point the last domino, the Papacy, must fall into place, and that marks the beginning of a new journey to the other side of the Tiber.

One thing in Catholicism that many Anglicans object to is the appalling slovenliness of the liturgy (at least in the U.S.). Anglican churches often have a more outwardly catholic liturgy than most Catholic parishes: beautifully, reverently executed to the strains of Gregorian chant, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, and Palestrina.

David Haas and Marty Haugen can keep an otherwise catholic Anglican at bay for years.

 

[GKC]

Tonks40,

Again, Anglicans vary. As to Mary, as I recently posted somewhere here, our Mass opens or closes with the Angelus, sung or spoken, our prayers are commended to Our Lady, and there is a small Mary shrine at the back of the sanctuary. As for the sacraments we have all seven (this is an Anglican view, of course) most especially including that of Holy Orders (pace
Leo XIII and Apostolicae curae). Some Anglicans do make a distinction between the 2 Dominical sacraments of baptism and communion, and the remaining five. And I’ve done the standard Rosary, though it is not usual at my parish. At others, it is.

I think your last paragraph is pretty accurate, in those terms.

GKC

Anglican, not in communion with Canterbury