And you know this, how? St. Robert Bellarmine, on blind obedience to heretics:
For although the people take no vow of obedience to their pastors or bishops, they are still bound to obey them according to the teaching of St. Paul. So that, willing or not, they have to render them blind obedience and credence in those things which are not obvious to them already. Of course it can happen that a bishop or priest may be a secret heretic, trying to seduce the people and propagate his heresy. But God Himself and the vigilance of other pastors of souls will not permit this to go on for very long before it is properly referred to the judgment of the Holy See. Moreover, even though somewhere, by God's permission, a credulous people should be easily seduced by their pastor, no Catholic would dare say that therefore the people should be discouraged from obeying their prelates, or should themselves become judges of their pastors, and decide on the doctrine that is being preached to them. We know from present experience among the Lutherans that the danger of heresy is far greater by making this kind of concession to human liberty, than it will ever be from the simple obedience of the people. ("Tractatus de obedientia," in Auctarium Bellarminianum, ed. Le Bachelet (Paris, 1913), p. 385)
Just look at your use of the word "apostate". You don't even know what it means (hint: check St. Thomas, the Catholic Encyclopedia, or any catechism) and yet you and some other traditionalists throw it around on these threads. Look at how many traditionalists elevate themselves to judges of the teaching of the Church's ordinary Teaching Authority and clearly don't know what they're talking about: the infamous "subsists", the supposed contradiction of Quanta Cura and the Decree on Religious Liberty, etc.
I know what an apostate is thanks. And if I didn't, I wouldn't ask you. If you didn't have your cut and paste cheat sheet you would be lost.
Mahony, Levada and friends are not secret heretics. They are flaming, out in the open apostates who don't practice what they put in writing. Many modernists are sophisticated heretics. Their writing is vague and deceptive enough to be passable to the untrained mind, yet their behavior reveals who they are. As I said before, watch what they do. It is more important than what they say.
These are not men of God and we have no obligation to obey them when they OPENLY and willingly depart from the Faith.
And guess what? If Mahony suddenly converted to Catholicism and preached the Faith of 2000 years I would obey him. Surprise!
As a flame always rises upwards, especially if the burning matter is poked and turned, so the heart of a vain man cannot become humble. As soon as you say something to him for his own good, his heart exalts itself more and more; if he is denounced and amonished, he argues heatedly; if he is praised and welcomed, he puffs himself up still more.
(St. Simeon the New Theologian)It is only by hammer blows that God manages to humble us, no matter how good our native disposition. (St. Anthony Mary Claret)
Often, actually very often, God allows His greatest servants to make the most humiliating mistakes. This humbles them in their own eyes and in the eyes of their fellow men. It prevents them from seeing and taking pride in the graces God bestows on them. (St. Louis Marie de Montfort)