Ultimately, is it not absorption in that is is an "ordinate" rather than as an autonomous Church like those in the Eastern Rite? The congregation is absorbed into the RCC as no new Anglican Ordinate clergy are being ordained by the CC, only those who convert from the Anglican Church. Eventually the well will run dry. No question that assimilation is the end game in my opinion resulting in the complete loss of the traditional and theological identity.
Indeed.
The Ordinariate basically consists of Anglo Papalists, a surprisingly large subset of Anglo Catholics who desired the Church of England or their own particular Anglican province to be reunited with the Roman Catholic Church under the Pope, while retaining the Anglican liturgy, as well as some Anglo Catholics who were pushed too far by liberalism and who would have crossed the Tiber anyway, presumably because they regarded the Continuing Anglican churches as non-viable, or there were no Continuing Anglican churches available to them, and they saw Orthodoxy as alien, or lacked access to the more familiar worship of a Western Rite Orthodox parish.
The introduction of homosexual marriage in 2003 was a disaster for the Anglican communion, which caused the Episcopal Church USA to lose 33% of its members, and the response of Dr. Rowan Williams was tragically shortsided and inadequate - only a full separation of communion would have contained the damage.
People alienated by this were going to go somewhere, and ACNA insofar as it is in communion with the Global South which is still technically in some kind of relationship with Canterbury was intolerable to some, and the Continuing Anglican churches that formed in the 1970s in response to liberalism in the Episcopal church only really exist to any great extent within the United States - there are very few in Canada and almost none in the UK. So in places such as Canada, Europe or Australia, the Ordinariate would be, for many disaffected Anglicans, an obvious option.
However, it does not represent an ideal option, since the Ordinariate is subject to Papal Supremacy, and like the Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches, is not fully autonomous - indeed, it is even less autonomous than the Eastern Catholics (I think in theory the Melkites or the Chaldeans or the Ukrainians could break communion with Rome if they were sufficiently aggrieved, and retain control of their property, while this is less likely to be the case with the Anglican Ordinariates). Just as the Traditional Latin Mass is being suppressed at present by a Pope who regards it as a threat to Catholic unity, there is nothing stopping a future Pope from Latinizing the Anglican Ordinariate parishes, from requiring them to adopt the Roman Missal and Liturgy of the Hours unmodified. And only the enthusiastic endorsement of the Eastern liturgy at Vatican II protects the Eastern Catholic churches from conversion to the Western Rite, but Latinization remains a problem, despite having been officially condemned by Vatican II - ironically, under the pretense of de-Latinizing, the Maronite Church actually removed much of its ancient liturgical material that dated back to before the schism that separated it from the Syriac Orthodox Church, and adopted various Novus Ordo practices, in the process becoming more Latinized (and I would argue the Maronite liturgy specifically has the most abuses and the most problems of any Roman Catholic liturgy, and I have met Maronite converts to Orthodoxy who left because of frustrations with it - I feel there is an urgent need for a Maronite Rite Vicarate in the Orthodox Church).
