I came across this quote in Andrew Rabel's report in Inside the Vatican Magazine on the recent Australian Ordinariate informational gathering:

Archbishop Hepworth said, “The Apostolic Constitution deliberately avoids the use of the word Roman, repeating a Vatican II ecclesiology of communion which resonates with Anglicans.”

This seems to correspond with a notion which, on numerous occasions, I have heard expounded by the TAC Primate and other proponents of a rather singular interpretation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the meaning of the (all-important) word communion.

In every legal sense of the term, Ordinariate Anglicans will be Roman Catholic — members of the Latin Rite and subject to law of this Church in everything not superseded by the Apostolic Constitution.  Rather than embracing this fact, some have gone so far as to describe the personal ordinariates as somehow being distinct churches sui juris in everything but name.

I fully understand the nuances of encouraging reticent Anglican congregations to accept the idea of becoming Roman Catholic; it is this "new ecclesiology" — now attributed to Vatican II — that troubles me.

In what way does the Apostolic Constitution represent a new ecclesiology?  If it does, what are its ramifications for the Universal Church and where does it stand in the light of Tradition?  Does the absence of the term "Roman" from Anglicanorum Coetibus signify anything at all?  I think that this needs to be unpacked.

[I also think that the mindset brought about by this new ecclesiology underlies the deep hurt and anxiety now being felt in a number of jurisdictions of the TAC.  Perhaps discussion here can, in charity, be an encouragement to our brethren who now find themselves bewildered.]

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