“I view Lutherans as close to us in catholicity (I prefer the term orthodoxy)”
The official view is something like “well, they’re pretty close”, but they aren’t considered Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. The liturgy is deemed similar enough, but if you were to go up and take the Lord’s Supper in a Lutheran church, your church would view that as illicit. Nor is a Catholic priest allowed to serve communion to a Lutheran in a Catholic church. So, clearly, you can’t really view them as true brethren, if you can’t share the most basic expression of Christian unity.
As for your personal view, what does that matter? Catholicism is a rigidly dogmatic sect. If your personal opinion differs from the church, then you yourself are voicing unorthodoxy, and so you can’t speak for Catholics if that is the case.
Catholicism is not a sect, and while it is rigid in Christ's teachings, the teaching on the Lutherans is: Their communions can be genuine spiritual encounters with Christ.
We share with them in the basic expression of Christian unity -- prayer to the One Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ