Chris Johnson posts a contribution – the comments are a necessary read, as folks sort through such a possibility. I have a hard time seeing it myself, but…who knows!

By-the-by, I’m pulling this from the comments over there, not because it directly pertains, but because I was impressed by the clarity and simplicity:

Of course I know that Anglo-catholics (And catholic minded Lutherans and probably others) think of themselves as "Catholic", considering the Catholic Church to be divided into branches Roman, Orthodox, Anglican, etc. If I agreed with the branch theory, I’d certainly still be Episcopalian, or more likely Anglican. About 20 years ago, however, a course in Church History (taught in an Episcopal School of Theology by an Episcopalian who described herself as a Calvinist) inbued me with the notion that historically, "Catholic" referred simply to that fellowship of believers in Communion with Peter. "Catholic", therefore was not a concept as much as a concrete function. Concurrently, I picked up the notion (from Orthodoxy) that the classic "visible/invisible church" dichotomy wasn’t compatible with the Incarnation. So the "Branch Theory" went out the window and I had to consider the claims of the Catholic Church. May 11, 1987 I was received into the Catholic Church at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Mass

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