The Catholic Herald has this excellent editorial on Pope Benedict XVI as the "Pope of Christian Unity."
When Jesus prayed that his followers may be one, He was praying for the unity of the Church whose leadership he entrusted to St Peter and his successors. He was not prophesying that this unity would be achieved by a particular model of ecumenism. In the 20th century, the Church mapped out a route towards unity which focused on ever closer links with other Christian communities, such as the Anglican Communion; the aim was to achieve a corporate reunion. Thus, the purpose of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, so far as the Church was concerned, was an agreement in which the Archbishop of Canterbury would once again become bishop of a historic see of the Church that Anglicans describe as "Roman Catholic". Unfortunately, participants on both sides of ARCIC glossed over the fact that doctrines of transubstantiation and infallibility are unchangeable: one can do no more than tinker with the language in which they are defined.
Indeed, both sides implied that they could offer what were, in fact, impossible concessions. Many, if not most, Anglicans are Protestants: their objections to Catholic teaching on the Eucharist and papal primacy are fundamental. ARCIC established some genuine common ground between the two bodies; but some of the convergence was illusory. And this was the case even before Anglicans took irreversible decisions to ordain women priests and (in many provinces) women bishops, too.
As a result of these latter developments, a tremendous gloom settled over the Church's official ecumenists. It has taken Pope Benedict XVI to show us that ecumenical dialogue can achieve the long-awaited goal of corporate reunion by another route. Let us take the example of the Society of St Pius X. Those of its members who accept the Magisterium can be welcomed back corporately into full communion; as a prelude to this, the Holy Father took the necessary but controversial step of lifting episcopal excommunications (though no one, including the Pontiff, would claim that the Vatican executed this manoeuvre skilfully).
The forthcoming group reception of former Anglicans is in some ways less controversial. Ever since the 1990s, the Holy Father has been convinced that orthodox Anglicans can be corporately received into the Church after detaching themselves from official bodies that have opted for the Protestant innovation of women's ordination. This detachment need not be a source of long-term damage to Anglican-Catholic relations; from the Anglican point of view, it recognises an already existing ecclesial reality. For Catholics, however, it is more than that. As the Pope emphasised in his address to the CDF last week, his Apostolic Constitution is that rarest of developments: an ecumenical gesture that increases the visible unity and the liturgical riches of the Church. Those Anglicans who accept the papal offer will be doing a wonderful thing – not just for themselves, but for us, too.
Certainly the departure of the Anglican Communion from Catholic Faith and Apostolic Order is an ecclesial reality. And it is one with which many Anglicans — especially in the Church of England — are presently attempting to come to terms. But with the publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus, there is a much greater ecclesial reality for all Anglicans to consider — and it is now the only reality that matters. Regardless of what the Church of England ultimately decides on the issue of women bishops, whether provision is made for independent episcopal oversight for Anglo-Catholics in the Established Church, or whether the Continuing Church is yet a viable option for the transmission of the Faith, the Holy Father is calling us home — in our communities and bringing with us all that is good and true in our venerable Anglican Patrimony. Can there be any justification for remaining Anglican apart from communion with the Apostolic See?
The 39 Articles despite attempts to interpret it as Catholic as possible, is really a Protestant confession. Thus right from the start Anglicanism left the Catholic faith. But unlike other Protestant communions, the Anglican Church tried to bridge the Catholic and the Protestant with ambiguous interpretations of its creed. But surely this won't hold for long. Anglicanism has been in confusion about what it really is about. For instance, Apostolicae Curae was taken badly by the High church but was shrugged by low church evangelicals, who didn't care about the apostolicity of holy orders.
Not surprisingly it took 500 years, Anglicanorum Coetibus and Pope Benedict XVI for all Anglicans to finally come to terms with the ecclesial reality. And its the Anglo-Catholics who have to face the contradictions so clearly, starting with the Pope's declaration of the state of Anglican orders. Many Anglo-Catholics have problems with Papal infallibility even if they can accept the dogmas of the Immaculate conception or the Assumption of Mary. The infallibility of the Church is accepted by the Orthodox and Catholics and this was rejected by the 39 Articles. However the Catholics come to a deeper understanding of infallibility as exercised by the Petrine office. The Orthodox haven't come to this understanding yet. Part of the Catholic understanding is to accept this infallibility of the Pope.
Acceptance of this dogma does not reduce the Anglican, or even the Greek Catholic etc identity for that matter but gives us certainty that the Bishop of Rome throughout the centuries, has brought to us the whole truth of our salvation