great post stalwart. But I would make two exceptions to your statement about the universal acceptance of baptism. A traditional Roman Catholic priest told me that my Methodist baptism was invalid because they sprinkled rather than immersed or poured the water on me. Also, the Orthodox Church also told me that I would be required to go through baptism again as they only accept immersion. Triple immersion, nothing else.
Ultimately I would say that I think you're guessing here. We need to ask some WELS people, and while some might charitably assume that their LCMS brethren have at least valid sacraments, even if illicit or whatever, I would bet that other WELS folk would deny the LCMS even the validity of the sacraments, along with their licitness. We're assuming here, since we don't know any WELS Lutherans. You had me until the last point; I do not think the two instances are equivalent. You're dealing with very different ecclesial traditions here. The Lutherans would historically deny many outside their communion to have valid sacraments. The Romans would, likewise, deny validity to essentially everyone else; however they would include the Orthodox for a variety of historical reasons. The larger point is that Christians do exclude other Christians from the sacraments for doubts of their validity, and not through mere politics. And if you're skeptical that Lutherans would exclude other Lutherans, at least consider this: the WELS Lutherans would certainly exclude us from having valid sacraments. Not just politically or pragmatically, but ontologically. I don't think my criteria are more stringent, by a long shot. They are far less stringent than the WELS criteria of being in literal communion with WELS. They are far less stringent than Rome, of having succession, and transubstantiation, and being directly in literal communion with Rome. This approach is not any worse or better than any other; is simply its own set of criteria. We must have criteria, and some criteria are as good as any other. What do you benefit in, by allowing some Christian the validity of his Eucharist of which you don't partake? Also the stringency of criteria don't decide their validity; what matters is truth and rightness. We don't need to try to be the softest Christians here; that era of Anglicanism is over, and the future belongs to the hard. Which itself is a kind of stringency, have you noticed? And not the kind that I provided, making yours more stringent than mine in some circumstances. Based on the criteria you've provided, the Eucharist without clear words of institution is not the Eucharist. AND, the Eucharist conducted by laymen is a valid Eucharist; there are serious issues with that position. Normally I would, as long as it's not the ultra-radical Catholics, for whom communion is a sacrifice of Christ to the Father by the priest, which is not something that I want to partake of... But for the regular Catholics, I would partake communion, but I don't, since their rules don't allow me, and I respect them.
I'm not guessing, I looked at their official statements on the matter. And what those statements say is that they don't share communion over doctrinal differences, and not over questions of validity. Some WELS Lutherans and LCMS Lutherans might not think other denominations have valid sacraments, but the official statements of their synods insofar as I have researched them do not say so. Perhaps is it is said elsewhere, but I find it interesting such an emphasis is absent in everything I have read on the matter if it is their true position as Synods. And even then, what do their confessional documents say? That "It is the Word (I say) which makes and distinguishes this Sacrament, so that it is not mere bread and wine, but is, and is called, the body and blood of Christ," but not a particular charism of the minister or doctrinal assent of the same, which I agree with Luther on. Of course they are not equivalent. Obviously they are different; it would not be an analogy without some disanalogy. But they are alike in this one sense, that the Roman Church accepts the validity of Orthodox sacraments, not because they share equivalent doctrine on the sacrament, or in other places, but for any other reason, yet do not share communion because of doctrinal differences. And this is the teaching of the conservative American Lutheran synods as well. I have no problem with the idea of exclusion in general, but I dare to ask the question why we should exclude. And that comes to the question of what defines validity? Which is the question we are discussing. For the Lutherans, it isn't ordination, it isn't intellectual worthiness (which is, perhaps, one way we could interpret this idea of intellectual assent) but it is the Word of God. For Catholics, it's a lot of things. For Anglicans, I strongly believe it is much closer to the Lutheran idea, or at least was until the Tractarians. If I haven't convinced you of the Lutheran position, I can at least call out your understanding of the Romans here; does the acceptance of the validity of Orthodox sacraments not completely and utterly undermine your interpretation of their doctrine of validity? Or do you think I am talking of exclusion here, not validity? Obviously. I didn't say otherwise. Why do you assume I believe toleration is above even the truth, as these proddings indicate? Is it because I'm an Episcopalian, and obviously we have no backbone or sense of what is sacred? That seems dishonest, don't you think? Tell me a bit about these serious problems. I'm yet to be convinced they truly exist, by either Scripture or our formularies.
The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Law in which Christ, through the ministry of the priest, offers Himself to God in an unbloody manner under the appearances of bread and wine.The priest doesn't offer the sacrifice , Christ Himself.