Intercommunion doesn't sound like reunification...."

Quite right. I have yet to meet a German Catholic (when I am in Germany) who wants reunion, much less intercommunion. Knowing, on the Catholic side, communion must go with membership, they are quite happy to go their separate way, leaving Lutheranism on its own railing. Last year, one told me, cheering for reunion is good practice for cheering, not for reunion. Catholics see themselves as more evolved than Lutherans, especially in northern Europe. But, like you say, the opposite is true among Lutherans. Yet, over there, it is still the Lutheran side that keeps pushing for intercommunion while Catholics see such talk as "kindly, stuck with too much saliva."  I don't think our US bishops see much of a future with them either. It shrinks like all the other mainline churches. Both churches press forward the faster, hoping to leave the beaten way of the past, mutual departure, further behind. Maybe it will change this summer when there.