Formal Lutheran Path to Rome???

This just in on the eve of the Reformation:

The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said in an interview that the Vatican would entertain a hypothetical proposal by Lutherans to establish ecclesial structures modeled on the ordinariates developed for Anglican communities that wish to enter into full communion with the Holy See.

“Anglicanorum coetibus was not an initiative of Rome, but came from the Anglican church,” said Cardinal Kurt Koch, referring to the 2009 papal document that established the ordinariates. “The Holy Father then sought a solution and, in my opinion, found a very broad solution, in which the Anglicans’ ecclesial and liturgical traditions were taken into ample consideration. If similar desires are expressed by the Lutherans, then we will have to reflect on them. However, the initiative is up to the Lutherans.”

Full interview here.

The problem is that Lutherans do not have a long standing formalized hierarchical structure.  Nor do Lutherans have a united liturgical tradition in the same way as the BDP among Anglicans.  Finally, Lutherans are much more Protestant in identity than the Anglo-Catholics attracted to Rome.  What Lutherans find attractive in Rome requires nothing less than the formal abandonment of the very Reformation principle of obedient rebels in a tragically necessary renewal movement.  Anglo-Catholics can see Rome as the formal end to what they believed was the Anglican identity all along but Lutherans do not have the same dynamics.

Still in all it will be interesting to see how this plays out. . .