Farther and farther

Robert Sungenis believes "that many in the upper hierarchy of the Church have gone deep into apostasy," and based on his reference to a 2001 statement issued by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity on an Eastern eucharistic prayer (the Anaphora of Addai and Mari)--with the approval of Ratzinger and the Holy Father--and other "blasphemies" it appears that he's not just talking about Bishop Gumbleton, but rather of JPII, Ratzinger, and other members of the Vatican and its curia.

His justification for this appears to me to question the indefectibility of the Church: responding to the common Catholic argument that Matthew 16:18 guarantees that the Church cannot err in matters of faith and morals, Sungenis argues that the verse only indicates that the gates of hell with not prevail against the Church, i.e. that hell "will not win the final war." He argues, in fact, that apostasy at the highest levels is to be expected.

Now, it is certainly possible for members of the hierarchy to fall into apostasy. But Sungenis seems to be arguing more than that: if the PCPCU, the CDF, and the Holy Father can all get a doctrinal decision wrong, who's to say what else they may have gotten wrong, not only today, but twenty years ago? Or thirty? Or forty? Or fifty? Or fifteen-hundred?

I think Sungenis' line of thinking is extremely dangerous.