[ultima ratio]

It is a distinction without a difference. Customary means habitual practice, Tradition means that which is handed-down. None of this precludes gradual change, as the popes and councils themselves have taught and as Ratzinger is at pains to point out. What Tradition cannot be is revolutionary or radical.

No one can deny that what has been going on since Vatican II has been a radical assault on Tradition. The Novus Ordo was a fabrication to start with and a radical break with the past. But there have been many other departures from Tradition as well, both in what is taught and what has been doctrinally suppressed. This has been tantamount to a break with the faith itself.

Insofar as the Pope approves of such a course, he transcends his authority. In fact he has taken a solemn oath to do just the opposite and to defend Traditional teachings and practices. Thus the faithful are placed on the horns of a dilemma. They can either follow the novelties modernists are instituting with the approval of the Pope, or they can stick with Tradition and with the faith itself.

[RobbyS]

But neither you nor I have the right to make such distinctions. Boniface VIII made some way-out claims of direct secular authority which were supported by many in Rome for a long while. In the end they were rejected by Bellarmin when Sixtus V, his boss, began to entertain them. The Jebbie would have lost his job had not the pope died.