Schillebeeckx - "...A Ghetto Church...."?

The Belgian-born Dutch Dominican theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx, died Dec. 23 at the age of 95 in Nijmegen, Netherlands, where he lived and taught for more than five decades. He wrote well into his 90s.
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Precious Blood Fr. Robert Schreiter, considered the leading U.S. expert on Schillebeeckx, said his legacy will live on, principally for several major contributions. He was the first Catholic scholar to take seriously all the historical research on Jesus that had been done in the 19th and 20th centuries and present it in an intelligible way.
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When I visited him in Nijmegen in 2007 I was impressed with his calm demeanor. It came, I think, from his confidence in God and in Christ. He knew the story was not over, though he was keenly aware of the hierarchical church today and had no misapprehensions about the direction in which it seemed to be heading. This is what he said in 1990:

My concern is that the further we move away in history from Vatican II, the more some people begin to interpret unity as uniformity. They seem to want to go back to the monolithic church which must form a bulwark on the one hand against communism and on the other hand against the Western liberal consumer society. I think that above all in the West, with its pluralist society, such an ideal of a monolith church is out of date and runs into a blind alley. And there is the danger that in that case, people with that ideal before their eyes will begin to force the church in the direction of a ghetto church, a church of the little flock, the holy remnant. But though the church is not of this world, it is of men and women. Men and women who are believing subjects of the church.

Fr. Schillebeeckx's words from 1990 are as timely today as they were then, and not simply as applied to the Roman Catholic Church. Is there a lesson for Episcopalians and Anglicans in the words as we ponder and discuss the Anglican Covenant which has been laid before the churches in the "Anglican Communion" to sign - or not? The words "some people begin to interpret unity as uniformity" and "the monolithic church which must form a bulwark" lept out at me. I cannot help but believe that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' vision for the "Anglican Communion" is similar to the type of church Schillebeeckx warns against. Did the ABC not study Schillebeeckx's theology or ecclesiology? Or did he study the writings and conclude that they were nothing of value? Why in heaven's name would Rowan want to model his plan for the "AC" after a Roman model that is so obviously flawed and unsuitable for the Anglican churches of today? Why would he strive for the impossible goal of a communion of uniformity and monolithic structure for a group of churches of such wide diversity? What in heaven's name is wrong with a communion based on the Scriptures, the Creeds, common worship, and the bonds of affection?

Repeating Fr. Schreiter's words:

When I visited him in Nijmegen in 2007 I was impressed with his calm demeanor. It came, I think, from his confidence in God and in Christ.

Why a Covenant focused on rules and discipline rather than a focus on the Center, Jesus Christ, in whom "we live and move and have our being"?

From the National Catholic Reporter.

H/T to Ann Fontaine at the Lead.