It is not property ownership, nor parish corporate structure which makes a person or a parish "Protestant" - it is matters of doctrine which deviate from what the Catholic CHurch teaches.
This strict obedience is nonesense! St. Thomas More & St. John Fisher were martyrs preciesly because they were disobedient to a lawful, but immoral authority. So much for your knowledge of the lives of the saints!
The "Mother Angelica" example is hardly irrelvant - it is crucial, but of course it suit you to wave it away. She "obeyed" as she had no choice, lest she and her entire ministry be silenced by apostate bishops.
In terms of the situation which I posited - where your local ordinary suppresses YOUR parish, seizes its assets, and demands your immediate and total silence and meek obedience - I would contend that anyone who would obey such a Bishop is a fool! There is nothing - not even Canon Law - which gives a Bishop the right to act in such a premptory, greedy, and uncharitable manner. Yet they are doing just that......right now......in many dioceses as I write this.
And - as I said - just because something is in Canon Law does not make it "right". After all, Canon Law is entirely man-made. It did not descend from heaven out of whole cloth. It is merely a proceedural document. That does not mean that pastor and bishops should not be obeyed. But it does not do away with the intelligent excercise of right reason, and human logic.
Again I say: Christ walked this earth for 33 years and owned nothing but the clothes upon his back. He had no money or material goods......neither did his apostles. They were given food to eat by the common people, bathed in the river like them, and wore what they wore. If they had any little money for food, it was becuase of the random generousity of people.
Christ gave to Peter.....and hence to all future popes, bishops, and priests........nothing.....but raw spiritual power. He did not promise them money, much less great buildings, and countless riches. He did say that the Father would provide for all their needs.
That, in the final analysis is ALL that the Church has: spiritual authority and power. It has always been at its greatest when, like its Master, it was poor, and had to depend solely on that power.
Soon, what is left of the infrastructure of the NO church will be stripped bare. This is now happening before our eyes. It is a mimicing of the stripping of Christ prior to His crucixion.
Left bare and abandoned by apostate priest, power mad apostate bishop, and layman alike, the remnant of the Church will learn again how to weild that raw spiritual power again. This was what made the church great - and will make it great again.
And for an epilogue........Judas was perhaps the most learned of the 12. He spoke multiple languages, and was literate.
He also was the one who kept the books........and held the purse for the group.
With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan: "Judas is the very model of a modern Vicar General"
.........or bishop.
Evidently, you did not notice that I proposed said behavior as "protestant" (lowercase P), yet you proceeded to respond with a rather inadequate definition of "Protestant" - but more on that later...Maybe I was wrong in using "protestant" to refer to those who continually "protest", whine, and bellyache about the authority of the Church because their own malformed consciences delude them into thinking they are correct. As you seem to be quite familiar with this attitude which infects the Church, perhaps you could do us a favor and offer another noun which would adequately reflect a proper understanding.
With respect to St Thomas More and St John Fisher, they were martyrs precisely because they refused obedience, not to lawful authority, but to one who had become a renegade and disobedient to lawful Church authority while forcing others to submit to him even though he was a usurper of authority which he did not have. Fisher and More saw their obedience to God and the Church first. I suspected beforehand that you would jump on this, that's why it was phrased as it was.
It seems that your disdain for the Church, which by the way is indefectible, appears to have clouded your ability to think rationally and clearly. We have witnessed in recent years - even decades, it seems, a greater degree of efforts aimed at disrupting the unity of the Church. Unity means that the members of the Church are united in belief of the same doctrines of revelation, and in the acknowledgment of the authority of the pastors of the Church.
St. Paul ranked schism and heresy with the crimes of murder and idolatry and he stated that these would not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:20, 21).
In his epistle to the Ephesians, he called for unity by exhorting, "Be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us all." (Eph 4:3-6).
Despite your opinions, unity in the governance of the Church is no less essential to the Church than that of doctrines, despite what you and others have been saying. Our Lord speaks of one Church - His Church. There is but one kingdom not many kingdoms.
Our Lord speaks of one fold and one shepherd (John 10:16).
St. Paul compares the Church to a human body: "For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: So we being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." (Rom 12: 4-5)
The Church is compared to a vine, in which all the branches are connected to the main stem. All of the branches so connected, therefore, obtain their life and nourishment from it.
As God is one, so, too is the Church. Anyone who would knowingly and willfully withdraw from the communion of the Church, or from communion with her legitimate pastors, becomes like the withered branch and is cut off from the main vine.
The hierarchical structure of the Church has been established to maintain unity just as the body is united to the head. The faithful should be subject to their immediate Pastor, the Priests should be subordinate to the Bishop, and each Bishop should acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter.