Quite frankly, the word "tradition" can be confusing. If WE as Catholics sometimes have a hard time with the whole concept, I imagine Protestants are even more befuddled...
I think the way the Church looks at Apostolic Tradition (compared to Scripture), they consider it to be very similar. They give it the same reverance and consider it coming from the same source as the Scriptures - from God through the Apostles. The reason why I wrote the above (that Tradition is not the same) is that it is more difficult to ascertain if something IS Apostolic Tradition.
For example. Infant baptism. It takes a bit of research into the Fathers. It takes the Church time to analyze the "sense of the faithful". "Is the Spirit leading the Church to believe this in its liturgy and daily practices?" When I look at this gradual development into being finally defined by a Council, it naturally takes more time then reading Scriptures and seeing that Christ died for the sins of all men - which is clearly noted in Divine Writ. This is why I wrote that Scripture naturally is so important.
Everything that the Church teaches as dogmatic and as Apostolic Tradition can be found in the Scriptures, either explicitly or implicitly. The Assumption of Mary, her Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, etc... BUT - the same is not true vice versus. The Council of Trent was careful not to say that God's Revelation comes equally from Scripture and Tradition. It merely says "from written and unwritten means". Once something (Infant Baptism) has been solemnly defined as Apsotolic Tradition, THEN, and ONLY THEN, can we say that it is at the same "level" as Scripture in that it comes from God and cannot be in error. Thus, the process is different regarding the consideration of whether something IS from God and is found only implicitly in Scriptures. There are a lot of things one can say are "implicitly found" in Scriptures - but are not part of the Faith!
Naturally, because of its human medium (individual Fathers are not writing inspired by God), Apostolic Tradition is not "inspired by God" in the same sense as Scripture. But again, it is considered teaching from God. The teaching comes to us differently, but in the end, if it has God as its source, we obey it equally.
Regards
That's not all they said:
It also clearly perceives that these truths and rules are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions, which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. Following, then, the examples of the orthodox Fathers, it receives and venerates with a feeling of piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and New Testaments, since one God is author of both; also the traditions, whether they relate to faith or to morals, as having been dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church in unbroken succession.How anyone could read that and come to the conclusion that Trent did not teach that the oral traditions were equally inspired with the Bible is beyond me. And Roman Catholics have for centuries taught that the oral traditions contain truths other than those found in Scripture.
Cordially,