The Anglican Catholic Church is a worldwide body of Anglican Christians in the continuing Anglican movement which grew out of the 1977 Congress of St. Louis. The Congress was called in response to the Episcopal Church's heavy revision of the Book of Common Prayer, which was felt to abandon a true commitment to both scripture and historical Anglicanism. The decision to allow the ordination of women was just one part of a larger theological shift introduced by the revisions and opposed by the Congress of St. Louis. As a result of the desire to maintain the Apostolic tradition of male-only clergy and the exclusive use of historical Anglican liturgical forms, the church was separated and the advocates carry on with the tradition under the name of "Anglican Church in North America". The name wa