"He stood for the Church's universality and unity"

St Augustine's sermon on the feast of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul reminds us that the Petrine ministry is one which serves communion and unity.  Peter, Augustine proclaims, "stood for the Church's universality and unity":

Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, "To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, "To you I am entrusting," what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained" (John 20:22-23).

Quite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed (Jn. 21: 15-19). It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord’s sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles.

Augustine's understanding of the Petrine ministry provides an insight into the crisis of contemporary Anglicanism.  Without the Petrine ministry, Anglicanism vocation to universality and unity is fundamentally flawed.  The ARCIC agreements on 'Authority in the Church' have at least implicitly recognised this, urging Anglicanism to undergo a "recovery and re-reception" of the "universal primacy by the Bishop of Rome" (The Gift of Authority III, 62).

It is in this context that the authentically ecumenical promise of Anglicanorum Coetibus can be seen.  To quote from Fr Aidan Nichols' homily at the first Mass of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:

It is nothing less than the reconfiguring of Anglicanism by union with the Petrine centre and its criteria of orthodoxy. 

For universality and unity, we need Peter.  This is what Anglicanorum Coetibus offers the Anglican tradition.  For Anglican pilgrims on the path of reconciliation with the See of Peter, this is what we can celebrate on today's feast.