If a bishop orders you to shut down your Catholic channel, are you obligated to obey?
A viewer who runs a channel commenting on Catholic matters (priests, the Pope, the Church) asks whether a Catholic is obligated to obey a bishop, cardinal, or Pope who orders him to close the channel.
Answer
If the order is arbitrary, with no real reason, he cannot do that, and if he insists on shutting you down you can sue him; that is what canon law is all about. A bishop has only so much room to act, and he must be able to justify everything he does so that it could stand up in a court of law. So you might obey at first and then sue him. He will do everything to avoid a lawsuit he might lose, because if he loses he will not look good, so he may relax his position. You ought to read canon law and find out what your rights are as a Catholic, because some bishops will do bad things to you. Look at the new bishop in Detroit who said any Catholic involved in Trump's reorganization of Catholic Charities funding would be excommunicated; that is a political difference, not a denial of doctrine, and he is treading on thin ice and asking for a lawsuit. So if you are going to tell somebody to shut down, you had better have a good canonical reason from start to finish, not a personal or political one, or you are going to lose.