I've seen some Anglo-Catholics do stuff I think is not in keeping with an Anglican ethos (as defined by the 39 Articles). I have a problem with that level of hypocrisy.
Would you still categorize those practices (Eucharistic Adoration and saying the rosary being two examples you later cite) as hypocrisy by priests who are in jurisdictions where priests do not take oaths relating to believing in the 39 Articles, and where the articles are simply regarded as a historical document?
In such jurisdictions, what gives the 39 Articles any more authority than the very Catholic 4 Articles and 10 Articles, documents that would put evangelical Anglicans on the wrong side of the ledger in terms of their beliefs and practices?
Saints were almost certainly venerated in the ancient Celtic Church and in the Church in England right up until the Reformation, and there was a strong view of the real presence, transubstantiation in many cases or close to it up to that point. Then in the earliest days after the break with Rome, the Church was still very Catholic (Hence the 4 and 10 Articles). So, what gives the more evangelical Reformation era theology automatic preference over the preceding 1500 years of belief and practice in England? I think it's a worthwhile question, especially when it is ultimately book-ended by the Oxford movement in the 19th century. The Reformation was certainly not a blip, nor were the 39 Articles, but are they so definitive to the Anglican ethos that select parishes and priests who lean Catholic can't adopt Catholics beliefs and practice to some degree while remaining in communion when their provinces are not explicitly requiring adherence to the articles?
What about lay people in any jurisdiction (Who, granted, couldn't do Eucharistic Adoration without the help of a priest to consecrate the Eucharist for them, but could certainly pray the rosary)? I can say that when I was a practicing Episcopalian, and got confirmed in the church, I would absolutely not have done so had I been required to adhere to the 39 Articles. But converts and confirmands from within the church are not told that they have to. Neither are deacons, priests, and bishops upon ordination.
I think some of this flows from Roman Catholics fleeing the more conservative restrictive atmosphere of the Roman church, but remaining broadly Catholic in their beliefs and practices, just in a way similar to had the liberals or progressives really prevailed in the battle for the soul of the Roman church after Vatican II (The Episcopal Church's last Presiding Bishop [Primate] prior to the current one was a Roman Catholic convert.). Similarly, a lot of the conservative Anglicans took a hike- to continuing Anglican jurisdictions unaffiliated with Canterbury, to Eastern Orthodoxy, and to Rome (I remember where I was living 11-13 large families en mass left the local Episcopalian parish for the local Roman Catholic parish after Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop, though this wasn't in his diocese). This creates an interesting flow in of people likely to reject the 39 Articles and flow out of people likely to want people bound to them, and hence... But a key principle of Anglicanism has since the Reformation been that national churches get to decide these things for themselves.
And it is not as though Anglo-Catholicism is something created wholly by Roman converts. The beginning of the movement wasn't, and, in a larger sense, it's worth keeping in mind that when the Roman Catholic Church was outlawed in England, a lot of people probably stuck with the Church of England not necessarily out of preference, but out of prudence. The Roman church is back operating in England, but there are people who's families for constant generations maintained Catholic practices at home while in the Church of England, and who in union with the Oxford Movement want to keep their membership in their church and their beliefs, and to be open about them and have priests who will minister to them.
I don't know. I'm trying not to debate, and I will say I actually think it would be very helpful- to me personally, even- to have a Catholic Church that has split from Rome that operates in the Spirit of Vatican II that was widespread in the Americas. But there isn't one. So people wind up Roman or Episcopalian, there is really no in between available where most Americans live (There are a few scattered random unaffiliated parishes or parishes that associate in a very small church or denomination that are something like that, but it's a big country and so these aren't geographically options for most). The Old Catholic Church in continental Europe has no official constituent church in the US.
