I think, you are glossing over one important distinction.
It is quite correct that sometime an ostensibly Catholic Mass is offered that is unrecognizable to any serious Catholic. On this we have no disagreement. In fact it was my first comment on the thread, that the Novus Ordo mass has to be reformed, at a minimum, that Ad Orientem posture is adopted, alter girls disallowed, etc. Every serious Catholic has a list of things that are an absolute must for our own sake, let alone for any reunification.
On the other hand, that will not make Latin Mass Orthodox in the sense of bearded priests, golden robes, iconostasis, leavened Eucharist, and so forth: it will remain distinctly Latin.
So that is the distionction. I have a feeling that the Orthodox speak of the former — because it is hard to disagree on the former, but they really mean the latter. This betrays a lack of good will, — lack of love. This is why the reunion is not possible in this generation.
“It’s the way of life, a culture.”
Alex, you of all people know Kosta is right! There is no need for the Latins to use the iconostasion, have beared priests or use prosphoron. The old High Mass was just fine. but Wiccan nuns and the NO liturgy just isn’t fine and we have no time or tolerance for them. They are not and cannot and never can be “Orthodox” or “orthodox” no matter what the theologians and hierarchs, yours and ours, say. We will indeed simply walk away from them. Love, Alex, is not the issue. As Kosta says, its Orthodoxy.
It's not hate, as in μισέω, but rather a sense of alienation, something unnatural, forced. It's like going to the UK and recognizing it's the same language but the lifestyle, attitudes, and overall culture is not the same.
In fact, on a closer look, nothing is the same, which is bewildering because it seems that it should be! The language is mostly the same, but has a strange accent; the words sound the same but means something different or are spelled differently; the Church "looks" Catholic but isn't; the head of the Church is also the head of state, who is also a monarch, and who reigns but doesn't govern; someone equivalent to the Speaker of the House runs the government and is called the Prime Minister; there are dozens of political parties instead of two; there is no written Constitution; 40%of the population is either agnostic or atheist, etc.
Do you really think Americans and the English could reunite based on the fact that once they were one and the same nation, that they use the same written language, that they both teach the same pirnciples, or that they share so many other things in common? The English are not Americans, because one cannot reduce our differences to one or two elements.
We could erase history, annul the American Revolution; even agree to a Constitutional Monarchy (without a Constitution!), we could change our names to "fifty colonies," and change our flag to the Union Jack—none of that would makes us English! It would be a faux union.
Likewise, we can scrap out anathemas (they were dropped in 1964, after 910 years), we can shred our doctrinal statements; we can all call ourselves Catholic once again, but by such superficial measures neither will the Latins become Orthodox nor will that name change make the Orthodox Catholics.
Such a (re)union would be a lie, Alex. That's all. It has nothing to do with any lack of love.