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The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, responding to Apostolicae Curae in Saepis Officio, pointed out that the standard used to invalidate Anglican Orders would also invalidate Roman Orders as the early medieval ordination rights did not include the language Rome was looking for. Basically it was a “So are you” response.

That issue aside, my question comes down to this: in order to be Roman Catholic, one must profess belief in and acceptance of, among other things, Purgatory, Immaculate Conception, Papal Infallibility, Clerical Celibacy and Roman practices regarding the elevation of the Host and the adoration & invocation of Saints, Images and Relics. Anglican beliefs flat out reject Purgatory, the “Romish doctrines concerning images and relics” and any other doctrine that cannot be proved by the plain words of Scripture. My question therefore is, how does the “Anglo-Catholic” pick and choose between Roman doctrine and discipline and Anglican doctrine and discipline?

You have to understand the nature of the Anglican church. It wasn't really founded as a church -- it was founded as a political solution. Catholics and Protestants had been merrily burning one another for years, depending on who had control over the matches at any given time, and Elizabeth was at her wits' end. She devised the Established Church so that you could be ALMOST a Catholic, or ALMOST a Dissenter, and avoid the heavy hand of government. So Anglicans have parishes that are 'more Roman than Rome' and others that are as spare and stern as a Wee Free meeting house.

The XXXIX are also in some ways a political compromise. Affirmation of the XXXIX was required for a lot of things (for example to matriculate at one of the Universities) but the two extreme ends of the Church simply blinked at them or explained them away. (Some things in there, like XVI and XXXIX, were just as difficult for certain Dissenters and Puritans to swallow as XXII and XXVIII for the Catholic wing).

So, the technical language of the XXXIX may reject quite a number of doctrines on both ends of the scale, but in practice a "high" parish is essentially Catholic if not ultra-Catholic (see, e.g., "Smoky Mary's" in NYC) and a "low" parish is plain white-bread Bible Protestant.

The first time I took my raised-Methodist husband to the somewhat notorious Our Saviour Virginia-Highlands, it was Easter Sunday and the long-time rector Fr. Pettway (may he rest in peace) preached on Purgatory. Which confused my husband somewhat.

But, of course, C.S. Lewis believed in Purgatory and the Real Presence. There's a lot of wiggle room in the Anglican Church and always has been.

P.S. . . . celibacy isn't a doctrine, it's a discipline. And I never in 47 years saw an Episcopal Church where the Host wasn't elevated at the Consecration.