Ed Peters offers his First thoughts on an Anglican ordinariate (via Fr. Z). Having read comments posted at various blogs, Mr. Peter is not alone when he claims:

In any case, the idea of a "personal ordinariate" is another sign of the (I think) inevitable trend away from purely territorial jurisdictional units in the Roman Church and toward greater use of personal jurisdiction. This trend has been evident in western canon law at least since the late 1960s (see, e.g., 1967 Synod of Bishops, "Principles Guiding the Revision of Canon Law", no. 8) and is reflected in the 1983 Code (e.g., 1983 CIC 372, 518). Provided this shift is pursued in an orderly manner, I think it a step in the right direction for people who are coming to see themselves as less identified with various locales, and more with social groupings. Certainly several other groups in the Church will be watching the Anglican project with an eye to applying innovative structures in their own spheres.

Fr. Louis Bouyer addresses this trend in his The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit. While he concedes the usefulness of extraterritorial parishes and ecclesial movements, nonetheless he beliefs that the locality of the parish and diocese must be maintained. Peter Karl T. Perkins believes that a canonical structure such as the one being offered to Anglicans seeking communion with the Church of Rome should also be offered as part of the solution for the FSSPX problem:

Jean, it is NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT a prelature, personal or otherwise. It is a personal ordinariate: or-din-Air-ee-et. Say it. Think it. Memorise it. And get that nonsense from the media out of your head. They can't get the word 'prelature' out of their mindless heads because they are mentally retarded buffoons.

A personal prelature would have been a disaster because it is NOT what the church calls a 'particular church'; that is, it is not a diocese or its equivalent. A personal ordinariate IS equivalent to a diocese for its subjects.

With a personal prelature, you need the permission of the local Roman nutcase bishop to set up a parish. Every single time Opus Dei wants a parish or mission in a diocese, it needs permission from the local Roman ordinary. That is not this. Thank God! Alleluia!

Not to be too prideful but Fr. Z. is just now discovering what I have been arguing for since 1997, both for the T.L.M. and for the TAC. Fr. Z. still can't get it straight. For example, he recently suggested that these people would get the Anglican Use liturgy. That is definitely not the case. They hate the A.U. Liturgy approved in 1983 by Rome--and rightly so. I suspect that they will get, for the time being, there current liturgies but with the Roman Canon substituting for whatever they use.

Z. is right that this will be a model for the rest of us and that is GREAT news. I'm glad that others are slowly and gradually coming to realise this. There will be no personal prelatures--no traps!--for us. The way forward is this new personal ordinariate structure.

The Campos structure IS equivalent to a diocese. It is an 'ritual' apostolic administration. That is goooood. It is very good.

Military ordinariates are also good, very good.

The new personal ordinariates are good, they are good, they are good indeed.

Opus Dei has a personal prelature, which is baaaad, very bad--bad, at least, for it. It originally asked for a structure which would have been a particular church but this was rejected by Rome. They took what they could get. I don't like Opus Dei very much, so I am happy that they failed to get the right structure.

Once again, let us STOP comparing this new structure to the Opus Dopus personal prelature. No matter what it takes, I will bang this distinction into people's heads until they surrender. I will NEVER allow those morons in the media to fudge this crucial distinction. In the end, however, it doesn't matter if people can't get it straight. Under this new structure, the incoming Anglican ordinaries will not need permission from the local Roman ordinaries to establish parishes or apostolates. Period. That's what counts. Sir Humphrey Appleby said that truth is irrelevant: only appearances count. But he was wrong and we shall soon see how wrong!

See Mr. Perkins's blog for a longer explanation of this proposal.

Now, regardless of whether this new canonical structure is useful for the FSSPX to be restored to full communion with the Church, how does this square with the observance of the canon that there is to be one bishop for one diocese or territory? The Orthodox themselves rightly perceive that this is a problem in the United States, and they seek to resolve it in accordance with the ancient canon. But the Catholic Church seems to be going in the opposite direction. This is not to say that there are not pastoral needs being addressed by the creation of such structures, but I question whether it should be ideal or permanent. In a world with more saints, such structures may not be necessary, just as it may not be necessary for there to be bishops of different rites all in the same city. One bishop would have the care of all Christians in his diocese, while they could keep their particular liturgical rites and this attachment would be rightly respected by the bishop.

The age of mobility will eventually come to an end with the end of the age of cheap energy. But I don't expect the Church to adjust to that new reality until it happens.